WASHINGTON (AP) — In a show of American military might to North Korea, U.S. bombers and fighter escorts flew on Saturday to the farthest point north of the border between North and South Korea by any such American aircraft this century. The Pentagon said the mission in international airspace showed how seriously President Donald Trump takes North Korea's "reckless behavior."

"This mission is a demonstration of U.S. resolve and a clear message that the president has many military options to defeat any threat," Defense Department spokesman Dana White said in a statement.

"North Korea's weapons program is a grave threat to the Asia-Pacific region and the entire international community. We are prepared to use the full range of military capabilities to defend the U.S. homeland and our allies," White said.

North Korea's leader, Kim Jong Un, has said Trump would "pay dearly" for threatening to "totally destroy" North Korea if the U.S. was forced to defend itself or its allies against a North Korean attack. Kim's foreign minister told reporters this past week that the North's response to Trump "could be the most powerful detonation of an H-bomb in the Pacific."

North Korea has said it intends to build a missile capable of striking all parts of the United States with a nuclear bomb. Trump has said he won't allow it, although the U.S. so far has not used military force to impede the North's progress.

The Pentagon said B-1B bombers from Guam, along with F-15C Eagle fighter escorts from Okinawa, Japan, flew in international airspace over waters east of North Korea on Saturday. The U.S. characterized the flights as extending farther north of the Demilitarized Zone, than any U.S. fighter or bomber had gone off the North Korean coast in the 21st century.

B-1 bombers are no longer part of the U.S. nuclear force, but they are capable of dropping large numbers of conventional bombs.

U.S. Pacific Command would not be more specific about many years it had been since U.S. bombers and fighters had flown that far north of the DMZ, but a spokesman, Navy Cmdr. Dave Benham, noted that this century "encompasses the period North Korea has been testing ballistic missiles and nuclear weapons."

At the United Nations, North Korea's foreign minister, Ri Yong Ho, said Saturday that his country's nuclear force is "to all intents and purposes, a war deterrent for putting an end to nuclear threat of the U.S. and for preventing its military invasion, and our ultimate goal is to establish the balance of power with the U.S."

He also said that Trump's depiction of Kim as "Rocket Man" makes "our rocket's visit to the entire U.S. mainland inevitable all the more."

Trump on Friday had renewed his rhetorical offensive against Kim.

"Kim Jong Un of North Korea, who is obviously a madman who doesn't mind starving or killing his people, will be tested like never before!" the president tweeted.

Trump continued the heated exchange with the North Koreans Saturday night.

He tweeted: "Just heard Foreign Minister of North Korea speak at U.N. If he echoes thoughts of Little Rocket Man, they won't be around much longer!"

On Thursday, Trump announced more economic sanctions against the impoverished and isolated country, targeting foreign companies that deal with the North.

"North Korea's nuclear weapons and missile development is a grave threat to peace and security in our world and it is unacceptable that others financially support this criminal, rogue regime," Trump said as he joined Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and South Korean President Moon Jae-in for a meeting in New York.

Hours later, Kim responded by saying Trump was "deranged."

In a speech last week at the United Nations, Trump had issued the warning of potential obliteration and mocked the North's young autocrat as a "Rocket Man" on a "suicide mission."

Trump's executive order expanded the Treasury Department's ability to target anyone conducting significant trade in goods, services or technology with North Korea, and to ban them from interacting with the U.S. financial system.

Trump also said China was imposing major banking sanctions, too, but there was no immediate confirmation from the North's most important trading partner.

If enforced, the Chinese action Trump described could severely impede the isolated North's ability to raise money for its missile and nuclear development. China, responsible for about 90 percent of North Korea's trade, serves as the country's conduit to the international banking system.

(Yahoo News)

Shifting tectonic plates cause earthquakes, and several human activities cause shifting tectonic plates—however, the effect is indirect.

Not all geologists agree about to what extent, and how often, human activity affects seismic activity. In fact, there have to be natural risk factors—specifically, unstable fault lines—for an earthquake to occur. However, the evidence is there that humans are creating situations that can agitate, lubricate, and put pressure on these plates. In fact, a book called Waking the Giant by Bill McGuire documents the science behind climate change creating ideal conditions for tsunamis, volcanic eruptions, and earthquakes.

A Japanese rescuer works with a sniffer dog during the search for survivors at a flattened building in Mexico City on September 22, 2017 three days after a strong quake hit central Mexico. A powerful 7.1 earthquake shook Mexico City on Tuesday, causing panic among the megalopolis' 20 million inhabitants on the 32nd anniversary of a devastating 1985 quake.ALFREDO ESTRELLA/AFP/GETTY IMAGES
Here’s how climate change can lead to more earthquakes, according to scientist emeritus at the US Geological Survey and CEO of earthquake app Temblor Ross Stein:

First, climate change causes weather events that people want to be prepared for. People in Lima, for instance, are concerned that, if nearby glaciers melt completely, they will no longer have a water source.

In response, people dam more rivers and dig more reservoirs so that they’ll have water to prepare for the future.

People are building reservoirs on fault lines all around the world, filling and draining them. The water in the reservoir can lubricate faults, and filling and draining the reservoir creates and lifts pressure. Furthermore, filling a reservoir can force pressure on water at the bottom, which can run into the ground and create cracks and instability.

Fault lines grind against each other; they don’t slip past each other smoothly or evenly. As pressure builds and the faults are agitated, they eventually jolt suddenly—creating an earthquake.

In addition to the earthquake, there’s another danger to building reservoirs on faults. “If a fault ruptured that is now beneath a reservoir, the risk is that the reservoir would catastrophically collapse and inundate low areas around it,” said Stein. A community could be left flooded, and then without stored water.

Around the world, people are seeing more seismic activity around recently-built reservoirs, a phenomenon called Reservoir-Induced Seismicity or Dam-Induced Seismicity.

However, it’s difficult to objectively prove that reservoirs cause earthquakes. While areas with reservoirs tend to have a lot of seismic activity, one could argue that those areas would have had earthquakes anyway.

That’s why it’s important to set up instruments and measure seismic activity in an area when a government is planning on putting a reservoir there, Stein said. That way, we can compare the before-and-after. “What’s really important is knowing, what is the earth telling us before we build the reservoir?” he said.

So did climate change or reservoirs cause the recent earthquakes in Mexico? “I doubt it,” said Stein. “If there’s a signal there it’s almost impossible to tease out of the process of plate tectonics that really drives those earthquakes.”

“We’ve known about those earthquakes on the Mexican coastline for 500 years,” Stein went on. “So that’s business as usual.”

(Newsweek)

A series of powerful quakes struck countries in a tremor danger zone known as the Ring of Fire this week.

A magnitude 7.1 earthquake devastated Mexico, killing at least 273, on Tuesday followed by ruptures in New Zealand on Wednesday and Japan, Vanuatu and Indonesia on Thursday.

Up to 81% of the world’s worst earthquakes occur in the Ring of Fire, United States Geological Survey figures show.

The DEADLIEST earthquakes of all time

Earthquakes have struck terror into the heart of mankind since the dawn of time. These once inexplicable phenomena were interpreted by primitive civilisations as the anger of the gods. With death tolls of up to half a million people, it's not hard to see why. Warning: contains GRAPHIC IMAGES

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Messina, Italy, 1908, 7.1 on the Richter scale. Between 75,000 and 200,000 lives were lost

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EARTHQUAKE FEARS: California is long overdue a major tremor, experts believe

Mexico City devastated by 7.1 magnitude earthquake – dozens dead

Devastation has hit Mexico City as a massive earthquake collapsed buildings and killed dozens

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People remove debris of a building which

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