The nuclear situation worsens in Kashmir: Revelation 8

Three politicians from India’s ruling party killed in Kashmir

Mukhtar Khan/AP

Indian police chase activists of Peoples Democratic party protesting against India’s new land laws that allows any Indian citizen to buy land in the disputed region in Srinagar, Indian controlled Kashmir, Thursday.

Assailants shot and killed three politicians from India’s ruling party in Kashmir late Thursday, police said, blaming militants fighting against Indian rule in the disputed region.

Militants fired at the three members of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party, or BJP, in southern Kulgam district, police said in a statement. The three were taken to a hospital, where they died, it said.

The party said they were members of the BJP’s youth wing and one was general secretary of the party’s Kulgam district. In a tweet, the BJP condemned the killings, calling them a “barbaric terror attack”.

“Those who are responsible for this will not be spared,” it said.

READ MORE:
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* Kashmir: Pakistan’s PM warns that nuclear danger could arise from conflict
* India’s Kashmir clampdown slightly eases, but many remain concerned
* India airstrikes in Pakistan raise fears of escalation into war
* Dozens killed in attack on Indian security forces in disputed region of Kashmir

Government forces launched a search for the shooters, police said. Officials did not immediately reveal other details, and no rebel group has claimed responsibility for the attack.

Kashmir is divided between India and Pakistan, and both claim the region in its entirety. Rebels have been fighting against Indian rule since 1989.

Mukhtar Khan/AP

Indian police detain a PDP activist protesting against India’s new land laws.

Most Muslim Kashmiris support the rebel goal that the territory be united either under Pakistani rule or as an independent country.

The attack comes two days after India enacted laws allowing its citizens to buy land in Kashmir, exacerbating concerns from residents and rights groups who see such measures as a way to change the demographics of the Muslim-majority region.

Mukhtar Khan/AP

Indian police chase PDP activists protesting against India’s new land laws that allows any Indian citizen to buy land in the disputed region in Srinagar.

Until last year, Indians were not allowed to buy property in Kashmir. But in August 2019, Modi’s government scrapped the region’s special status, annulled its separate constitution, split it into two federal territories – Ladakh and Jammu-Kashmir – and removed inherited protections on land and jobs.

The move triggered widespread anger and economic ruin amid a security clampdown and communications blackout.

Earlier Thursday, police detained several pro-India Kashmiri politicians who oppose the new land laws as they tried to protest the policy in the region’s main city of Srinagar.

Altaf Thakur, a local BJP spokesman, said the party had lost nine members in militant attacks so far this year. In July, militants shot and killed a top politician along with his father and brother, who were also party members.

India describes the Kashmiri militancy as Pakistan-sponsored terrorism. Pakistan denies the charge, and most Kashmiris call it a legitimate freedom struggle.

Tens of thousands of civilians, rebels and government forces have been killed in the conflict.

Trump Pressures the China Nuclear Horn

Trump administration pushes allies to pressure China over its nuclear program – CNNPolitics

Satellite images indicate Russia is preparing to resume testing its nuclear-powered cruise missile

Billingslea’s efforts are part of a broader push by the Trump administration to assert its view that China — and not Russia — presents the biggest threat to American national security, particularly in the wake of the Covid-19 virus, and the economic downturn in the US, which Trump has blamed on Beijing. Billingslea urged allies to impose consequences on China for its nuclear expansion, similar to the consequences China is increasingly facing over its 5G network, believed by the Trump administration and other countries to be a tool for espionage.

The administration is arguing that China’s efforts to increase the size of it means the US and its allies must take preemptive defensive actions, includes the deployment of additional missile defenses, to counteract the thousands of missiles China is allegedly building up. The administration also argues that China’s nuclear expansion legitimizes its own expansion of deep strike capabilities to push back China’s missile battalions.

“Unlike the United States and Russia where our nuclear weapons programs are both functionally and characteristically distinct — this particular reactor is for military purposes or for civilian purposes, The Chinese co-mingle everything. So all of their civil nuclear program is under the same Chinese communist party enterprises,” a senior administration official told CNN.

They noted that the Chinese “have a doctrine called military civil fusion and the doctrine says any civil company will furnish upon request to the party technology for military applications. It’s quite an alarming thing.”

US showed allies satellite images

As part of his messaging to NATO allies, Billingslea showed a series of satellite images depicting the expansion of China’s nuclear program over the past decade. The images, reviewed by CNN, were not particularly revelatory, nor did they offer any new information that might sway allies reluctant to go after China for its nuclear program.

“It is no great secret,” said Jeffrey Lewis, director of the East Asia Nonproliferation Project at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies. “The work at Jiuquan and Jintai is part of China’s program to recycle plutonium from its civilian nuclear reactors. China has announced this work publicly…While this plutonium could be used to make a nuclear weapon, the United States and other nuclear states would not use plutonium produced in civilian reactors because it is undesirable in a number of ways.”

Mianyang — one of the sites highlighted in Billingslea’s presentation to NATO allies, is where China designs its nuclear weapons. Like the US, Russia and other nuclear-weapons states, China has a robust simulation program to sustain its stockpile without testing, and it makes no secret about that, Lewis added.

Trump administration pushes for last-minute foreign policy wins in final campaign sprint

A spokesperson for NATO declined to comment on the meeting. A senior official with one NATO member state told CNN, “it’s obviously something we all care about,” but said that the meeting ended with no clear request or plan of action from the US.

Despite progress in reducing Cold War nuclear arsenals, the world’s combined inventory of nuclear warheads remains at a very high level, although the number is reducing. Approximately 91% of all nuclear warheads are owned by Russia and the United States who each have around 4,000 warheads in their military stockpiles.

That said, the US, Russia, and the United Kingdom are reducing their overall warhead inventories, France and Israel have relatively stable inventories, while China, Pakistan, India, and North Korea are increasing the number of warheads they possess, according to the Federation of American Scientists. This is particularly troubling to Washington and other allies who see an uptick in border disputes between China, India and Pakistan.

The Pentagon lists Chinese warhead stockpile as being in the “low-200s,” although that number is widely believed to be higher since the Pentagon’s most recent estimate, from 2019, only includes “operational” warheads. By comparison, Russia’s total inventory is believed to be over 6,000 warheads, while the US currently has about 5,800.

Russia says it’s willing to freeze nuclear arsenal to extend arms treaty with US

In September, the Pentagon said that China is attempting to at least double the number of nuclear warheads in its arsenal in the next decade and its military has already equaled or surpassed the United States in a series of key areas.

Billingslea has made outreach efforts to China over its nuclear program but the Chinese have not responded and have shown very little enthusiasm for engaging in nuclear talks with either the US or Russia. All the while, efforts to engage the Russians in discussions over arms control have made headway in recent weeks as the February 2021 expiration date of the New START agreement, designed to reduce the risk of war between Russia and the West, approaches.

Both Russian President Vladimir Putin and Trump’s Democratic challenger, former Vice President Joe Biden, have said they would look to extend the treaty. However, Trump said he’d only agree to an extension if both sides also agree to freeze all warhead stockpiles. Putin said he’d consider freezing all warhead stockpiles, although officials say it remains unclear how sincere he is in that promise.

The US has previously offered Russia to sign a presidential memorandum that would serve as a blueprint for the next comprehensive deal and cover points of concern for the US, including China’s nuclear potential and Russia’s tactical nuclear weapons.

CNN’s Ryan Browne contributed to this report.

Palestine Makes Threats Outside the Temple Walls: Revelation 11

‘Statehood now or face anarchy, violence and instability,’ Palestinians warn

“The option of ‘I’m taking my enemies down with me’ remains a Palestinian option,” states editorial in official PA daily.

Claiming that the United States and Israel are planning to “redesign” the Middle East via “normalization” and the US peace plan, the Palestinian Authority is threatening “anarchy, violence and instability.”

According to a report by Israeli NGO Palestinian Media Watch, an Oct. 13 editorial in the Ramallah-run Al-Hayat Al-Jadida daily, the PA lashed out at the Arab states that have recently signed peace agreements with Israel, stating that “a fire [will burn] generation after generation” unless the PA gets “Palestine.”

“Let the American administration and those doing its bidding not be deluded that it is possible to erase the strong Palestinian number from the equation of the conflict, whether by alternatives (!!) [parentheses in source] or by other means,” states the editorial.

“This is because the option of ‘I’m taking my enemies down with me’ remains a Palestinian option regarding which there is no disagreement, if the battle becomes a battle of life or death. The meaning of ‘I’m taking my enemies down with me’ will only be as follows: Either peace for everyone, or anarchy, violence, and instability.”

The PA defines “Palestine” as including all of the State of Israel – regardless of their claims to the international community that they are only interested in the West Bank and Jerusalem, according to Palestinian Media Watch.

The Palestinian Authority, as well as Hamas – the terrorist group that rules the Gaza Strip, has strongly rejected the recent rapprochement between the Arab world and the Jewish state, which has seen the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Sudan recognize Israel and seek full ties with in.

Fatah and Hamas both have decried the move as a “betrayal” of the Palestinian cause.

Reprinted with permission from JNS.org.

Iran Builds Up Her Nuclear Horn: Daniel 8

Iran has begun construction at Natanz nuclear facility, show latest satellite images

Web Desk

DUBAI – Iran has begun construction at its Natanz nuclear facility, shows latest satellite images, as the UN nuclear agency confirmed that Tehran is establishing the plant to replace the previous one, which exploded in an attack last summer.

According to International Atomic Energy Agency, satellite images released today show that Tehran is building an underground advanced centrifuge assembly plant.

San Francisco-based Planet Labs in its latest images show the site cleared away with what appears to be construction equipment there.

Iran’s mission to the United Nations did not immediately respond to a request for comment, Radio Pakistan reported.

The development comes amid presidential elections in the US where President Donald Trump, who has adopted a strict policy against Iran, and Democrats’ Joe Biden are facing off.

Joe Biden plans to scrap what he calls the dangerous failure of Donald Trump’s maximum pressure policy on Iran.

He has pledged that if Tehran resumes compliance with the pact he will return to the agreement, which Trump quit in 2018, reimposing sanctions.

In the United States, early voting has now topped 70 million, more than half of the total turnout in 2016.

According to Washington Post, ABC News polls, Democratic White House challenger Joe Biden leads Trump narrowly in Michigan and significantly in Wisconsin state.

November will bring more winds of God’s wrath: Jeremiah 23

November Likely to Begin With New Tropical Depression or Storm in the Caribbean

At a Glance

A tropical wave is moving westward through the Caribbean.

A rainmaker, likely with strong winds, should arrive near Central America next week.

Several significant hurricanes have formed in the first 10 days of November.

As a reminder that there is one month left in this hurricane season, we’re watching for yet another tropical depression or storm in the Caribbean next week. It could bring significant heavy rainfall and gusty winds to Central America at the beginning of November.

This tropical threat comes from a late-season tropical wave swiftly moving westward through the Caribbean Sea.

What We Know Right Now

The tropical wave, dubbed Invest 96L by the National Hurricane Center, has a high chance of development. It is likely to become the season’s next tropical depression or storm this weekend or early next week in the central or western Caribbean.

It is bringing showers and thunderstorms to the Lesser Antilles, Hispaniola and the ABC Islands (Aruba, Bonaire and Curaçao).

This system will move westward through at least Tuesday with a gradually decreasing forward speed as it reaches the western Caribbean.

Chance of Tropical Formation in the Caribbean

This wave is moving into the warmest water temperatures in the Atlantic Basin, surpassing 85 degrees at times in the expected path of this system. This is still very supportive of tropical development and intensification.

Wind shear – the change in wind direction and wind speed, which typically keeps a lid on tropical storm and hurricane intensity – is expected to remain low.

These two favorable ingredients for development could allow this system to become a tropical storm this weekend or early next week. It could go beyond that and become a hurricane next week, but this is somewhat uncertain. When this system becomes a tropical storm, it will be named “Eta,” the first unused greek letter in the 2005 Atlantic hurricane season.

Regardless of development, this system will produce heavy rain and possible flooding in Central America, Jamaica and the Cayman Islands through next Friday.

More than a foot of rainfall is possible in parts of Central America, but this forecast will be refined over the weekend.

Gusty winds are also likely if this system nears Honduras or Nicaragua, but these details will need to be adjusted in the days to come.

What We’re Figuring Out

After Tuesday, the track forecast is much more uncertain.

Many computer models show whatever this system becomes meandering near Nicaragua and Honduras during the middle of the upcoming week.

At that time, the system will interact with a high-pressure system, or a ridge or dome of higher pressure, which should be located over Mexico, the eastern Pacific and/or the Gulf of Mexico.

That ridge should guide the tropical system, but both the location of this ridge and its strength are uncertain.

There are at least two possible scenarios that could unfold toward the end of next week:

If the ridge is farther north or weaker, the system could cross Central America and escape into the eastern Pacific Ocean.

If the ridge is farther south or stronger, it could get stuck near Central America or recurved north or northeastward.

The first solution is slightly more likely than the second at this time.

The Hurricane Hunters may fly out to this system on Sunday afternoon to help this forecast improve.

November in the Tropics

Tropical development isn’t all that unusual in the western Caribbean in early November.

In fact, several storms have formed in this area over the last 70 years.

Notably, hurricanes Paloma (2008) and Michelle (2001) have formed near Central America and then moved northeastward toward Cuba. Paloma intensified to a Category 4 near Cuba before weakening to a Category 2 at landfall in the country, causing heavy damage in both Cuba and the Cayman Islands. Michelle was one of the most significant hurricanes in Cuban history at the time, causing billions in damage as a Category 4 hurricane.

(Tropical depressions have formed here since 1950)

We should expect one named storm every other November, and one November hurricane roughly every three years. Of course, some years are more active than this while others are quieter.

Historically, most systems that form in the western Caribbean are scooped up by the dipping jet stream over the United States and pushed northeastward over Cuba and the Bahamas and out to sea.

Other tropical systems form in the open Atlantic and around Bermuda or the western Atlantic. These systems are typically spawned by drooping cold fronts in that region or other orphaned low-pressure systems that break off from the jet stream.

By the end of the month, this jet stream makes it increasingly inhospitable for tropical systems to form in the Gulf of Mexico and the western Atlantic. Water temperatures increasingly get too cold for tropical development elsewhere in the basin, leading to less frequent systems.

The Weather Company’s primary journalistic mission is to report on breaking weather news, the environment and the importance of science to our lives. This story does not necessarily represent the position of our parent company, IBM.

How Pakistan became a nuclear horn: Daniel 8

Author Mohammad Hanif explains how Army generals turned Pakistan into an ‘international jihadi tourist resort’

The Pakistan Army has cultivated the image of 180 million people of Pakistan with nuclear devices strapped to their collective body threatening to take the world down with it, said Pakistani author Mohammad Hanif.The Pakistan Army has cultivated the image of 180 million people of Pakistan with nuclear devices strapped to their collective body threatening to take the world down with it, said Pakistani author Mohammad Hanif. In an opinion piece, Hanif, the author of A Case of Exploding Mangoes (2008), explains how generals of Pakistan Army turned Pakistan into an international jihadi tourist resort

He said that the Pakistan Army, throughout its history, has refused to take advice from politicians as well as thinking professionals from its own ranks.

Talking about General Zia-ul-Haq’s reign following a bloodless coup in 1977, Hanif said that his rule had brought automatic weapons, heroin and sectarianism in Pakistan; it also made fortunes for those who dealt in these commodities. “And it turned Pakistan into an international jihadi tourist resort,” he wrote.

The Army has never listened to historians and sometimes ignored even the esteemed religious scholars it frequently uses to “whip up public sentiments for its dirty wars”.

Hanif said that Pakistan is a society divided at many levels. All these factions may not agree on anything but there is consensus on one point that General Zia-ul-Haq’s coup was a bad idea, said Hanif, adding that the Army has, however, has continued Zia’s mission.

“Successive Army commanders, despite their access to vast libraries and regular strategic reviews, have never actually acknowledged that the multinational, multicultural jihadi project they started during the Zia era was a mistake,” he said.

“Looking back at the Zia years, the Pakistan Army seems like one of those mythical monsters that chop off its own head but then grows an identical one and continues on the only course it knows,” he added.

The author said that the Army and its advocates in the media often worry about Pakistan’s image as if Pakistan is not “suffering from a long-term serious illness but a seasonal bout of acne that just needs better skincare”.

“The Pakistan Army, over the years, has cultivated this image of 180 million people with nuclear devices strapped to their collective body threatening to take the world down with it. We may not be able to take the world down with us; the world might defang us or try to calm us down by appealing to our imagined Sufi side. But the fact remains that Pakistan as a nation is paying the price for our generals’ insistence on acting, in Asma Jahangir’s frank but accurate description, like duffers,” he said.

Talking about the 1999 Kargil “misadventure”, the author said that the war between India and Pakistan was forgotten as if it “was a game of dare between two juveniles” of Pakistan Army–General Mahmud and Air Cdre Abid Rao–who were now beyond caring about who had actually started the game.

Nobody pointed out the basic fact that there was no enemy on those mountains before “some delusional generals decided that they would like to mop up hundreds of Indian soldiers after starving them to death”, said Hanif.

The architect of this mission, the daring General Pervez Musharraf, who didn’t bother to consult his colleagues before ordering his soldiers to their slaughter, doesn’t even have the wits to face a sessions court judge in Pakistan, let alone a court-martial.

(This story has been published from a wire agency feed without modifications to the text. Only the headline has been changed.)

East Coast Quakes and the Sixth Seal: Revelation 6

Items lie on the floor of a grocery store after an earthquake on Sunday, August 9, 2020 in North Carolina.

East Coast Quakes: What to Know About the Tremors Below

By Meteorologist Dominic Ramunni Nationwide PUBLISHED 7:13 PM ET Aug. 11, 2020 PUBLISHED 7:13 PM EDT Aug. 11, 2020

People across the Carolinas and Mid-Atlantic were shaken, literally, on a Sunday morning as a magnitude 5.1 earthquake struck in North Carolina on August 9, 2020.

Centered in Sparta, NC, the tremor knocked groceries off shelves and left many wondering just when the next big one could strike.

Fault Lines

Compared to the West Coast, there are far fewer fault lines in the East. This is why earthquakes in the East are relatively uncommon and weaker in magnitude.

That said, earthquakes still occur in the East.

According to Spectrum News Meteorologist Matthew East, “Earthquakes have occurred in every eastern U.S. state, and a majority of states have recorded damaging earthquakes. However, they are pretty rare. For instance, the Sparta earthquake Sunday was the strongest in North Carolina in over 100 years.”

While nowhere near to the extent of the West Coast, damaging earthquakes can and do affect much of the eastern half of the country.

For example, across the Tennesse River Valley lies the New Madrid Fault Line. While much smaller in size than those found farther west, the fault has managed to produce several earthquakes over magnitude 7.0 in the last couple hundred years.

In 1886, an estimated magnitude 7.0 struck Charleston, South Carolina along a previously unknown seismic zone. Nearly the entire town had to be rebuilt.

Vulnerabilities

The eastern half of the U.S. has its own set of vulnerabilities from earthquakes.

Seismic waves actually travel farther in the East as opposed to the West Coast. This is because the rocks that make up the East are tens, if not hundreds, of millions of years older than in the West.

These older rocks have had much more time to bond together with other rocks under the tremendous pressure of Earth’s crust. This allows seismic energy to transfer between rocks more efficiently during an earthquake, causing the shaking to be felt much further.

This is why, during the latest quake in North Carolina, impacts were felt not just across the state, but reports of shaking came as far as Atlanta, Georgia, nearly 300 miles away.

Reports of shaking from different earthquakes of similar magnitude.

Quakes in the East can also be more damaging to infrastructure than in the West. This is generally due to the older buildings found east. Architects in the early-to-mid 1900s simply were not accounting for earthquakes in their designs for cities along the East Coast.

When a magnitude 5.8 earthquake struck Virginia in 2011, not only were numerous historical monuments in Washington, D.C. damaged, shaking was reported up and down the East Coast with tremors even reported in Canada.

Unpredictable

There is no way to accurately predict when or where an earthquake may strike.

Some quakes will have a smaller earthquake precede the primary one. This is called a foreshock.

The problem is though, it’s difficult to say whether the foreshock is in fact a foreshock and not the primary earthquake. Only time will tell the difference.

The United State Geological Survey (USGS) is experimenting with early warning detection systems in the West Coast.

While this system cannot predict earthquakes before they occur, they can provide warning up to tens of seconds in advance that shaking is imminent. This could provide just enough time to find a secure location before the tremors begin.

Much like hurricanes, tornadoes, or snowstorms, earthquakes are a natural occuring phenomenon that we can prepare for.

The USGS provides an abundance of resources on how to best stay safe when the earth starts to quake.

The War Escalates Outside the Temple Walls: Revelation 11

With massive exercise in north, IDF prepares for war on multiple fronts

Lethal Arrow drill simulates fighting in Lebanon, Syria, Gaza and elsewhere against Iranian proxies and Palestinian terror groups

By Judah Ari Gross 29 Oct 2020, 6:01 pm

The Israel Defense Forces on Thursday completed its premier exercise of the year, a large-scale simulation of war in the north against Hezbollah and other Iranian proxies, and of a smaller conflict in the Gaza Strip.

Dubbed Lethal Arrow, the drill was meant to improve the military’s offensive capability, specifically the number of targets it is able to strike each day, according to senior IDF officers.

The exercise, which began Sunday, was the IDF’s largest of 2020, with both regular conscripted units and reservists taking part, though its size was scaled back significantly due to the coronavirus pandemic.

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“This exercise is a special exercise for three main reasons: one, we set for ourselves a goal of improving our attack capability; two, this is an exercise that draws a line from the level of the battalion all the way up to the General Staff, with all the coordination and cooperation [up the chain of command] and cooperation between the different branches [of the military]; and three, this exercise has a number of new elements that we are assimilating [into the military],” IDF Chief of Staff Aviv Kohavi said Thursday in a conversation with senior officers participating in the exercise.

IDF Chief of Staff Aviv Kohavi, center, speaks with officers during a large-scale exercise Lethal Arrow simulating war in the north on October 29, 2020. (Israel Defense Forces)

IDF Spokesperson Hidai Zilberman told reporters the drill simulated a worst-case scenario: a war against Hezbollah and related forces in Lebanon and Syria, terror groups in Gaza, and Iranian proxies “in countries that don’t border us” (he refused to specify which).

This included massive artillery bombardments on Israel — in the form of both simple rockets and advanced precision-guided missiles — as well as cruise missile attacks, Zilberman said.

Brig. Gen. Saar Tzur, the head of the 162nd Armored Division, which participated in the drill, said the military also simulated cases of Hezbollah seizing Israeli territory in cross-border raids. This was based on the Iran-backed terror group’s reported plans to capture border towns in the Galilee at the start of a future conflict.

“Our job was to limit them,” Tzur said.

According to Zilberman, the exercise was also a test of newly updated war plans for the IDF Northern Command, which were approved some two weeks ago. The border with Lebanon has been tense in recent months, following as-yet unfulfilled threats of retaliation by the Hezbollah, after one of the terror group’s fighters was killed in Syria in an airstrike attributed to Israel in July.

“We are prepared — after this exercise, we are even better prepared — and we are ready for any development, from a day of fighting to more than that,” Kohavi said.

“Lethal Arrow,” or Hetz Katlani in Hebrew, included the military’s first use of its so-called “Red Unit,” which was created earlier this year to act as enemy forces for exercises. The 99th Division, a multidisciplinary unit that was formed two months ago, also took part in the exercise for the first time, along with its Commando Brigade and the so-called “Ghost Unit,” which was created this year to test out new fighting styles, techniques and equipment, the military said.

The exercise was also one of the first to rely on the IDF’s Target Task Force, which was formed last year. “It was created a year ago and it is producing thousands of targets. And those thousands of targets are meant to be translated — when called upon — into accurate strikes at a level that as far as we know is historically unprecedented,” Kohavi said Thursday.

Most of the ground maneuvers in the exercise were carried out by the 162nd Armored Division, which includes the Nahal and Givati infantry brigades and the 401st Armored Brigade. The Israeli Air Force also participated in the exercise, including the F-35 stealth fighter jet, which carried out both offensive and defensive missions, according to Brig. Gen. Amir Lazar, head of the air force’s Air Division, which is responsible for exercises.

Tzur said his troops focused on rapidly identifying and destroying enemy targets.

“The goal I set for us was 100 targets a day. In some cases, we surpassed that,” he said, noting that those were in addition to the sites hit by the air force.

Lazar told reporters that in addition to practicing airstrikes on targets both near the border and far behind enemy lines, the air force also simulated extensive attacks on the home front.

“We see the northern arena as a serious challenge to the defense of the nation’s skies, both from cruise missiles and from drones of different types,” he said.

Hezbollah is believed to control an arsenal of some 130,000 rockets and mortar shells, most of them simple, so-called “statistic” munitions, but also a small but growing number of precision-guided missiles, which present a far greater threat to Israel.

Lazar said the F-35 was also used in some of these defensive operations and represented a “leap forward in the abilities of the State of Israel and the IDF.”

The air force also practiced working closely with ground forces, providing support to infantry and armored units, the military said.

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The Israeli Navy also participated “significantly” in the drill, the IDF said.

“The [navy] forces simulated defending the economic waters of the State of Israel, its strategic resources at sea, and offensive and intelligence-gathering capabilities against the enemy,” the military said, referring to natural gas platforms off the coast, which have been defined by the government as strategic national sites.

Though the drill included actual ground, air and sea maneuvers, with thousands of soldiers taking part, Lethal Arrow was predominantly a so-called “headquarters” exercise, focusing less on the ability of field movements and more on developing the communication skills and work flows in the command centers overseeing the conflict.

An IDF soldier from a technology unit takes part in a large-scale exercise Lethal Arrow simulating war in the north in October 2020. (Israel Defense Forces)

In addition, noncombat logistics, cyber defense and telecommunications units simulated their role in a future war, Zilberman said, adding that Lethal Arrow was effectively “exercises inside of exercises inside of exercises.”

In light of the coronavirus pandemic, the exercise was far smaller than originally planned, though IDF chief Kohavi insisted that it be held.

“We limited use of conscripts and reservists as much as we could without sacrificing the exercise,” Zilberman said.

The spokesman said the military had yet to find any cases of infections tied to the exercise, but was monitoring the situation.

The Irony and Sickness of Khamenei’s Ignorance

Iran’s Khamenei likens Holocaust denial to Muhammad cartoons

Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei appears to liken Holocaust denial to cartoons deemed insulting to the Muslim Prophet Muhammad.

“The next question to ask is: why is it a crime to raise doubts about the Holocaust? Why should anyone who writes about such doubts be imprisoned while insulting the Prophet (pbuh) is allowed?” he writes on Twitter.

The comment comes as Khamenei and other Muslim leaders rage against French President Emmanuel Macron for defending cartoons that depict Muhammad, after a teacher in France was beheaded for showing one to students.

Another Wind of God’s Wrath: Jeremiah 23

Hurricane Center: Disturbance in Atlantic now has a high chance of becoming a tropical depression | Hurricane Center | nola.com

Published Oct 29, 2020 at 9:07 pm | Updated Oct 29, 2020 at 9:42 pm

Disturbance near the Lesser Antilles

The new area of disturbed weather was still moving from the Atlantic Ocean into the Caribbean Sea and now had a 70% chance of forming into a tropical depression over the next five days.

Forecasters said the system is expected to become a depression by the time it reaches the western Caribbean.

The shaded area on the map shows where a storm could develop and is not a track. The National Hurricane Center usually releases a track when a depression forms or is about to form.

It is unknown at this time whether this tropical wave will move toward the Gulf Coast.

Zeta

The hurricane that hit southeast Louisiana on Wednesday evening was now a post-tropical cyclone over the Atlantic Ocean, just off the coast of New Jersey.

Forecasters said the storm would become by a frontal system over the western Atlantic by Friday night.

Even now that Zeta no longer poses a threat, hundreds of thousands of residences and businesses were still without power in metro New Orleans while city and parish agencies worked to clean debris off the streets.

Utility company officials said they hoped to have power restored to most customers by the weekend.

Zeta was the fifth storm to hit Louisiana’s coast in 2020, the most of any year in recorded history.

What else to know

The system currently in the Atlantic Ocean will only be named once and if it progresses into a tropical storm.

Because forecasters have already run through the alphabet, the storm could be named from the Greek alphabet. The next name available is Eta.

The Atlantic hurricane season ends Nov. 30, but storms can form any time.