RUSSIA SURPASSES CHINA IN GOLD HOLDINGS
The Central Bank of Russia reported purchasing 8.5 million troy ounces of gold in January-November 2018. With its 67.6 million ounces of gold Russia is now the world's fifth largest holder behind the US, Germany, France and Italy.
China dropped to sixth place as it reported an increase in gold reserves just once in more than two years – to 59.6 million ounces in December 2018 from 59.2 million ounces in October 2016.
Industry sources told Reuters that Western sanctions against Russia lifted the country’s gold buying to record highs in 2018. One of the reasons Russia's Central Bank was betting on the yellow metal was because it could not be frozen or blacklisted, sources explained.
“It seems that there is an aim to diversify from American assets,” said a source in one of Russia’s gold producers, referring to the Central Bank's holdings.
While purchases of the precious metal by Russia jumped last year the country continued getting rid of US Treasury securities.
Earlier this month, Russia’s Central Bank reported that it cut the share of the US dollar in the country’s foreign reserves to a historic low, transferring nearly $100 billion into the euro, the Japanese yen and the Chinese yuan. The step came as a part of a broader state policy on eliminating reliance on the greenback.
According to sources, the Central Bank has been purchasing a significant portion of Russia's domestic gold production, which is also rising.
The world's third largest gold producer, Russia boosted its 2017 gold output by six percent. Data from Russia's Finance Ministry showed the country produced 8.5 million ounces (265 tons of gold) in January-October 2018. The Russian gold mining sector has nearly doubled its volume of extraction over the last two decades.
War Whores Scramble To Say Syria Attack Means Troops Must Remain
A suicide bombing in Manbij, Syria has reportedly killed 19 people including four Americans, two of whom were US soldiers and two of whom worked with the US military. ISIS, which has an extensive history of falsely claiming responsibility for attacks it had nothing to do with, has claimed responsibility for the attack. Despite the fact that ISIS would claim responsibility for a housewife stepping on a Lego block, and despite the complete absence of evidence that it had anything to do with the deadly explosion, all the usual cheerleaders of endless war are pointing to the Manbij suicide bombing and shrieking “See?? Trump said ISIS is defeated and it’s not!”
“ISIS is still a very real threat here,” CNN international corespondent Clarissa Ward told Jake Tapper from northern Syria. “And the real concern that we are hearing over and over again on the ground, Jake, is that when US troops withdraw, a power vacuum is created, and that only gives them more strength.”
Virulent Syria war pundit Charles Lister, who is notorious for praising Al Qaeda and is a senior fellowat the Gulf state-funded neoconservative think tank Middle East Institute, told AFP that this attack invalidates Donald Trump’s order last month to withdraw troops from Syria.
“Trump’s order was reckless and driven far more by domestic political concerns than it was by facts on the ground,” Lister said, adding, “To suggest ISIS is ‘defeated’ because it no longer controls territory is to fundamentally misunderstand how ISIS and similar organizations seek to operate.”
Former John McCain ventriloquism dummy Lindsey Graham pounced like a rat on a cheese doodle on the opportunity to call for continued US troop presence within hours of the attack, interrupting the confirmation hearing of Attorney General nominee William Barr with an ejaculation about Trump’s Syria withdrawal.
Senator @LindseyGrahamSC this morning spoke about the attacks on American service members in Manbij, Syria. pic.twitter.com/cpApsZa75Q— Kevin Bishop (@KevinDBishop) January 16, 2019
“I would hope the President would look long and hard at where he’s headed in Syria,” Graham said after repeating the baseless claim that the attack was perpetrated by ISIS. “I know people are frustrated, but we’re never going to be safe here unless we’re willing to help people over there who will stand up against this radical ideology.”
Not to be left out when there are moronic war agendas to be sold, Fox News leapt into the fray with a quote from an anonymous foreign diplomat saying “This attack today is a direct result of the announcement made by President Trump that U.S. forces are pulling out. These troops had a bullseye on them when the president telegraphed that he was ordering a pullout.”
“ISIS has already claimed responsibility for today’s suicide attack, a reminder that the group is not defeated,” added Fox’s Jennifer Griffin.
MSNBC’s deranged intelligence analyst Malcolm Nance topped everyone as usual with a babbling nonsensical post about how US troops were killed in Manbij because there were no US troops in Manbij, proving that Assad and Putin may have allowed the attack to happen, which proves Trump is a Russian asset.
“The moment Russia and Assad took over patrolling Manbij on Trumps go ahead we get hit with suicide bombers for the first time. It’s possible Russia/Assad let the attack happen. Trump’s treachery on this matter now kills our special operators. #RussianAsset,” Nance tweeted between huffs of paint thinner.
The moment Russia and Assad took over patrolling Manbij on Trumps go ahead we get hit with suicide bombers for the first time. It’s possible Russia/Assad let the attack happen. Trump’s treachery on this matter now kills our special operators. #RussianAsset. https://t.co/Sa0tGrM12g— Malcolm Nance (@MalcolmNance) January 16, 2019
Other voices are treating the reports about the bombing with a little more skepticism.
“If ISIS were smart it would hold its fire especially against Americans,” tweeted professor and author Max Abrahms. “The main justification for leaving Syria is the (contested) assessment ISIS is defeated. ISIS attacks convey the opposite, weakening the strategic rationale of withdrawal while making it politically harder.”
“Ok, so Trump announces that the U.S. will begin a phased withdrawal from Syria, which according to his critics, would only benefit ISIS who they say is still operational and would welcome a U.S. pull out. But not waiting for pull out ISIS then targets U.S. troops! Yeah right,” tweeted former Green Party vice presidential nominee Ajamu Baraka.
These are interesting points. If ISIS is indeed responsible for the bombing, as war pundits are unquestioningly asserting is the case, then they’re either really, really stupid or they really want US troops to remain in Syria. Or perhaps the attack was engineered by someone else who has a vested interest in keeping a US military presence in Syria, either using ISIS as a patsy or completely separate from ISIS. Wouldn’t be the first time a suspicious attack took place in Syria while the Trump administration was working to withdraw troops.
Of course, this whole debate ignores the most obvious point of all: that if there was no US military presence in Syria, there would be no US military personnel being killed in Syria. The fight against the terrorist forces who nearly overtook the nation with the help of the western power alliance’s imperialist support have been beaten to the brink of total defeat not by the US, but by the Syrian government and its allies. If US troops were removed Damascus would quickly restore stability to the region and continue rebuilding the war-ravaged nation. But this is precisely what these war whores do not want.
Syria is a strategically crucial geopolitical nation for reasons having to do with natural resources and the power dynamics of Israel, Iran, and the empire-aligned Gulf states. It is not a coincidence that so much energy gets poured into this small stretch of land and its surrounding nations by the western military alliance and its propaganda machine, and it’s unlikely that the global dominators will lose interest in Syria any time soon. Stay skeptical.
HUNGARY OFFICIAL: “SOROS PULLS THE STRINGS IN BRUSSELS”
Fidesz believes George Soros’s people “are pulling the strings of the European Commission’s leading politicians” and demands an explanation, Fidesz MEP Tamas Deutsch said at a press conference on an unrelated topic in Budapest on Saturday.
Related: [Video] George Soros Lobbies Youtube To Shutdown Content Creators
Deutsch noted that daily Magyar Idok learned that U.S. billionaire Soros had met for talks with the EU leaders on at least 20 occasions. Soros held talks with Jean-Claude Juncker, Frans Timmermans, Emmanuel Macron and Dimitris Avramopoulos, he added.
A poster slamming George Soros in Szekesfehervar, Hungary (Photo by Attila Kisbenedek / Contributor via Getty Images)
Deutsch said it was “absurd” that a person claiming to be a philanthropist who represents the official viewpoint of not a single country can meet with EU leaders more frequently than the prime minister or head of state of any EU member state.
Fidesz will ask for explanations, in writing, on the subject matter of all of these meetings, he added.
The EU Votes for the Installation of New US Missiles in Europe
Near the United Nations Glass Palace in New York, there is a metallic sculpture entitled “Evil Defeated by Good”, representing Saint George transfixing a dragon with his lance. It was donated by the USSR in 1990 to celebrate the INF Treaty concluded with the USA in 1987, which banned land-based short- and mid-range nuclear missiles (a reach of between 500 and 5,000 km). Symbolically, the body of the dragon is in fact made with pieces of US Pershing-2 ballistic missiles (originally based in West Germany) and Soviet SS-20 missiles (originally based in the USSR).
But the nuclear dragon, which in the sculpture is shown as dying, is now being reborn. Thanks to Italy and other countries of the European Union, which, at the United Nations General Assembly, voted against the resolution presented by Russia on the “Preservation and Implementation of the INF Treaty”, rejected by 46 to 43 with 78 abstentions.
The European Union – of which 21 of its 27 members are part of NATO (including the United Kingdom, which is currently leaving the EU) – has thus taken a uniform stance with the position of NATO, which in turn has taken a uniform stance with that of the United States.
Source: PandoraTV
The Obama administration first, followed by the Trump administration, have accused Russia, without any proof, of experimenting with a missile from the forbidden category, and have announced their intention of withdrawing from the INF Treaty. At the same time, they have launched a programme aimed at renewing the installation of nuclear missiles in Europe to guard against Russia, while others will also be based in the Asia-Pacific region against China.
The Russian representative at the UN has warned that “this constitutes the beginning of a full-blown arms race”. In other words, he warned that if the United States should once again install in Europe nuclear missiles pointed at Russia (as were the Cruise missiles based in Comiso in the 1980’s), Russia would once again install, on its own territory, similar weapons pointed at targets in Europe (but which would be unable to reach the USA).
Ignoring all that, the EU representative at the UNO accused Russia of sabotaging the INF Treaty, and announced the opposition vote by all the countries of the Union because “the resolution presented by Russia avoids the question under discussion”.
Essentially, therefore, the European Union has given the green light to the possible installation of new US missiles in Europe, including Italy.
On a question of this importance, the Conte government, like its predecessors, has abandoned the exercise of national sovereignty and aligned itself with the EU, which, has in turn adopted the position of NATO, under US command. And across the entire political arc, not one voice has been raised to request that it should be the Parliament which decides how to vote at the UNO. And similarly, no voice has been raised in Parliament to request that Italy observe the Non-Proliferation Treaty, which requires that the USA must withdraw its B61 nuclear bombs from our national territory, and must also abstain from installing here, as from the first half of 2020, the new and even more dangerous B61-12’s.
So this is a new violation of the fundamental constitutional principle that “sovereignty belongs to the people”. And since the politico-media apparatus swaddles Italians in the ignorance of these questions of such vital importance, it is also a violation of our right to information, not only in the sense of the freedom to inform, but also the right to be informed.
We must do this now, or else tomorrow there will be no time to decide – a mid-range ballistic missile can reach and destroy its target with its nuclear warhead in between 6 and 11 minutes.
Ditching Russian gas will be economic suicide for Europe
Washington’s attempts to derail the Nord Stream 2 pipeline project to supply Russian natural gas to the European Union will definitely backfire, according to a geopolitical expert Dr. Pierre-Emmanuel Thomann.
“The more the US puts pressure on Europeans, the more there is a risk that Europeans try to detach themselves from the US and try to make a better deal with Russia,” Thomann, who heads Eurocontinent geopolitical research, told RT.
Related: West Attacks Russia with Piketty’s Overblown Claims About ‘Oligarch’ Wealth by Jon Hellevig
Related: West Attacks Russia with Piketty’s Overblown Claims About ‘Oligarch’ Wealth by Jon Hellevig
“We cannot abandon the import of Russian gas, this will be economic suicide. So the Americans also have a limit of their pressure capacity,” the analyst stressed.
The comment comes as the US Ambassador to Germany Richard Grenell sent out warnings to German companies reminding them about significant sanctions they may face for participating in the building of the Nord Stream 2 pipeline with Russia.
Later, the US Embassy clarified that the letters were not a threat, but rather a statement of US policy. However, the clarification hasn’t stopped a number of German politicians from venting their anger.
“The matter of European energy policy must be decided in Europe, not in the US,” said German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas.
“The US ambassador seems to give the impression he is a viceroy of the Washington emperor,” top Left Party MP Fabio De Masi said, urging the White House to reprimand Grenell.
The US ambassador using direct threats towards German companies is a new unacceptable strengthening of tone in the transatlantic relationship, which the Federal Government should protest against,” said the German foreign policy spokesman for the CDU/CSU Party Juergen Hardt.
Related: Russia & Syria to dump dollar in mutual trade, agree joint energy projects
Related: Russia & Syria to dump dollar in mutual trade, agree joint energy projects
Nord Stream 2, a joint venture of Russia’s Gazprom and five European energy majors, is currently one third complete. The €9.5 billion pipeline is projected to double capacity of Russia’s gas exports to Germany via the Baltic Sea, and is supposed to come into operation by the end of the current year.
Source: https://www.rt.com/business/448755-nord-stream-us-economic-suicide/?fbclid=IwAR3N90j8R5zaZo593jxVy7-U50-NZQZntcsObjFaqzWCoQXjoF-orQoS4mU
Russia’s trade with China surges to more than $107 billion
© Sputnik / Vitaliy Belousov
Trade turnover between Russia and China soared by nearly 30 percent in 2018, reaching a record number of $107.06 billion, according to the latest report released by China’s General Administration of Customs (GAC).
The agency noted that last year Russian imports of Chinese goods increased by 12 percent to $47.98 billion. At the same time, China’s imports from Russia grew by 42.7 percent, reaching $59.08 billion. In December alone, the volume of trade between the neighboring countries reportedly totaled $9.8 billion.
Russia-China trade turnover has grown significantly over recent years. In 2017, mutual trade amounted to $84.07 billion demonstrating a growth of 20.8 percent. In 2016, the trade turnover grew by 2.2 percent in annual terms to $69.52 billion.
Russia became China’s number one partner when it comes to trade growth dynamics, according to the GAC spokesman Li Kuiwen. The spokesman added that China had mostly exported electromechanical goods to Russia, while purchased oil, coal, and wood.
Last week, the Chinese commerce ministry said that mutual trade between the countries in December reached $100 billion for the first time ever. Russia is currently ranked as China’s tenth biggest trade partner. Beijing remained a major importer of Russian produce, accounting for 15 percent of the country’s international trade as of 2017.
Professor Says White People Need to Accept That They’re Being Replaced in America and Europe
Professor Says that the Rise in Populism is Attributed to Whites Being Replaced in Europe and America. He Argues that We Need to Break Down White Identity so that Whites Accept this Change Willingly
Professor Eric Kaufmann of Birkbeck University in London has a new book out called ‘White Shift: Populism, Immigration, and the Future of White Majorities.” In his book he argues that white majority countries will soon be minority majority, but that we need to essentially break down white identity itself so that white people accept this fact willingly.
Related: Hungarian PM: Whoever signs the UN Migration Pact presents a serious risk to his own citizens
Kaufmann, who is the Professor of Politics at Birkbeck attributes the recent worldwide rise in populism to this massive change, and says that the polarization of the current political climate could be a result of white people fighting for the maintenance of their majority in America and Europe. Kaufmann states that this will only be a ‘temporary’ pushback to the inevitable future of Europe and America.
Kaufmann also surprisingly argues that………. WATCH THE REST OF THIS REPORT IN THE VIDEO BELOW
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