A new powerful earthquake struck Saturday in southwestern Pakistan, shaking an area already trying to recover from a quake that killed more than 300 people.
The 6.8 magnitude earthquake struck in Balochistan province Saturday about 96 kilometers (60 miles) northeast of Awaran, the United States Geological Survey said.
Officials say a major earthquake of 6.8 magnitude or larger has hit southwest Pakistan, less than a week after a massive temblor in the same region killed at least 359 people.
The U.S. Geological Survey said on its website that a 6.8 magnitude quake was felt on Saturday in Pakistan’s southwestern Baluchistan province.
Pakistan’s Meteorological Department measured the earthquake at 7.2 magnitude and its epicenter was located about 150 kilometers (90 miles) west of Khuzdar.
Chief Pakistani meteorologist Arif Mahmood told Pakistani television that it was an aftershock from this week’s earthquake and such tremors might continue for weeks to come.
Hours after an Israeli newspaper quoted a government security source saying that Iran already has at least one nuclear bomb, Israel’s leading Arab affairs analyst offered only a slightly less dramatic assessment, saying the regime in Tehran was no more than “one to two months away” from having sufficient 92% enriched uranium to build its first bomb.
Ehud Yaari, the veteran analyst of Israel’s top-rated Channel 2 TV News, added that Iran also had more sophisticated centrifuges becoming available soon that could cut that time down to just “two or three weeks."
On the same program, military analyst Roni Daniel derided the possibility of the “weak” US President Barack Obama holding firm in the face of the charm offensive mounted by new Iranian President Hasan Rouhani during his first foray onto the global stage at the UN General Assembly this week. Israel retained the capability to thwart Iran’s attainment of nuclear weapons, Daniel said.
Justice Minister Tzipi Livni, speaking from the UN, said the world should not “melt” in the face of Rouhani’s new moderate rhetoric, and that it was vital that the international community not “forget” the imperative to stop Iran getting the bomb.
Iran’s foreign minister, Mohammad Javad Zarif, who held unprecedented talks Thursday with his US counterpart John Kerry, posted a Facebook message saying Israel was “isolated” in its hard line on Iran. Under orders from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who himself will speak at the General Assembly on Tuesday, the Israeli delegation boycotted Rouhani’s General Assembly speech last Tuesday — the only delegation to do so. Netanyahu has warned the world not to be “fooled” by Iran’s moderate rhetoric.
Rouhani has made plain this week that Iran seeks to have economic sanctions lifted. Yaari said Friday that Rouhani wants to freeze the nuclear program at a level that would enable it to break out to the bomb within weeks if it so chose.
Earlier Friday, the Maariv daily quoted government analysts saying that the Islamic Republic already possesses at least one bomb.
The paper’s Shalom Yerushalmi wrote that “government security sources up to date on development in Iran,” told him recently that Tehran has crossed all points of no return and already has its first nuclear weapon, and maybe more.
That report marked the first time a government official had been quoted saying Iran already has a nuclear weapon. No sources in the piece were named.
The information, if true, would mark a major shift in international relations and would be a game changer in terms of a regional power balance.
“It’s too late for Israel [to prevent an Iranian bomb]. Iran has crossed all the borders and all the constraints, and it has a first nuclear bomb in its possession, and maybe more than that,” Yerushalmi wrote, basing himself on what he says is the assessment he heard this week from state security sources. ”We are facing a historic change in the strategic balance of forces in the region.”
He then quoted a source who he says is deeply familiar with what he calls the relentless war against the Iranians. “This is no longer about how to prevent a bomb,” the source was quoted saying, “but about how to prevent its being launched, and what to do if and when.”
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