BARRON’S: There Were Two Gigantic, Suspicious Sales Of Gold On Friday That Caused The Price To Plunge

A lot of gold bugs think the price is being manipulated somehow, or that there’s some divergence between what’s going on in “paper” gold (gold prices that are tied to ETFs) and what’s going on in physical gold (people buying ingots or jewelery).

Randall W. Forsyth at Barron’s fans the flames of goldbug conspiracy theorists a bit this weekend, arguing that there have been suspicious sales in gold seen on the exchanges (probably driven by the ETFs).

He writes:

These improbable moves have made gold bugs suspicious, which isn’t unusual. Folks who own gold do so because they don’t trust the status quo, especially when it comes to government-issued paper money. But just because you’re paranoid doesn’t mean somebody isn’t out to get you. They point to bursts of selling on Friday, April 12, which resulted in prices plunging by more than 5%, and to dumping that resumed the following Monday in Asia, early in the day when markets are illiquid. That culminated in a 9% collapse by the time the New York market had settled. But a seller who wanted to unload a large position at the optimal price would have done precisely the opposite—liquidate as discreetly as possible. Instead, sellers dumped the equivalent of more than 300 tons of the metal in staccato-like blasts during those sessions.

Two-Faced — Russia building up missile defenses while seeking to limit U.S. defenses

Another Gertz article with the same subject as a previous post:

Russia is engaged in a major buildup of both nuclear and conventional missile defense systems at the same time Moscow is seeking legal limits on U.S. missile defenses, according to U.S. officials.

The Russian military is developing and deploying an array of new and modernized anti-missile interceptors that are part of a strategic doctrine that calls for defending against what Moscow believes to be an increasing threat posed by offensive ballistic missiles, said U.S. officials with access to intelligence reports.

…

Additionally, the Russians are upgrading the SH-08 nuclear-tipped anti-missile interceptors that have been deployed around Moscow for more than two decades.

Chinese military unit said to resume cyber spying

The clandestine army unit, known as Unit 61398, “went quiet for a while — they changed the nature of their activities, they removed some of the tools that they had been using inside of different companies,” said Richard Bejtlich of Mandiant, which specializes in defending companies from cyber attacks and purging malware from computer networks that have been breached.

Mass. Police Catch 7 ‘Chemical Engineers’ from Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, & Singapore Trespassing Major Reservoir

A group of individuals from Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, and Singapore were caught early Wednesday morning trespassing at the Quabbin Reservoir in Massachusetts, one of the largest man-made public water supplies in the county, CBS Boston reports.

Report: US military too reliant on foreign suppliers

DAYTON, Ohio — A new report said urgent action should be taken to reduce the U.S. military’s dependence on foreign suppliers for raw materials, parts, and finished products needed to defend the nation.

“Remaking American Security: Supply Chain Vulnerabilities & National Security Risks Across the U.S. Defense Industrial Base,” was authored by retired Brigadier Gen. John Adams and commissioned and funded by the Alliance for American Manufacturing, a domestic industry advocacy group that’s a partnership between U.S. manufacturers and the United Steelworkers union.

Terrorist super-axis to strike within U.S.

Very plausible and not surprising — yet hopefully will never happen. If the Soviets likely had a nuclear device planted in Washington DC area during the JFK era, there has been plenty of time since then to domestically construct something after smuggling components across a neglected American border.

With the current White House administration spending hundreds of millions of dollars in frisking women, children and elderly at airports, yet couldn’t stop the Boston bombing (even with previous warnings that went neglected), we have a recipe for a future disaster, be it above or below the scale of 9/11.

Imminent attacks planned by al-Qaida, Quds Forces, Hezbollah

Iran has given the go-ahead to operatives of three terrorist groups that have infiltrated the United States to carry out missions, including what is expected to be a Mumbai-style attack on a hotel where innocent bystanders would be killed, WND has learned. A full report with many details of the missions has been passed on to U.S. officials.

Three targets have been chosen within America for imminent attack, and the terror teams have now cut communications with the operational center in Iran, a sign that they are moving ahead with the attacks, according to a high-level intelligence officer within the Islamic regime.

Open Secrets — Pentagon plans to share missile secrets with Russia opposed by Republicans

The Pentagon held internal talks on declassifying sensitive missile defense technology that it plans to share with Russia as part of the Obama administration’s efforts to assuage Moscow’s opposition to European defenses.

Republicans in both the House and Senate plan to block any technology declassification for missile defense technology in the current defense authorization bill and other legislation. Legislative mark up on the authorization bill begins this week.

Chinese hackers caught trying to steal secrets of our new stealth fighter as tens of thousands of cyber attacks are launched on jet manufacturer every week

• Lockheed Martin said it was being targeted by hackers from China
• Company is building new Joint Strike Fighter which is ‘invisible’ on radar
• Team of ‘young geeks’ battling against cyber attacks at British base

Chinese cyber spies have been caught trying to steal the secrets of Britain’s most sophisticated combat jet, The Mail on Sunday has learned.

A covert unit within the Chinese Army has been using highly sophisticated cyber weapons in a desperate attempt to acquire classified information about the stealthy Joint Strike Fighter (JSF).

Manufacturer Lockheed Martin claims it is thwarting tens of thousands of computer attacks every week to keep secure secrets about the jet – due to be in service with the Royal Navy and RAF by 2018.

It Doesn’t Fit the Narrative, Part Two

Most know who George Soros is, but perhaps not as much as they’d like to believe. More well-sourced and factual information about Soros can be found here – more than you could ever ask for, or want to know.

The intelligence community that we know no longer exists, as it has been infiltrated long ago and is redirecting its agenda.

Last October we explained how the Benghazi incident  highlighted the very sad politicization of the Intelligence reporting of the United States. Not at the functional level, but at various points in the political leadership. Click the link below and read the post in light of this week’s revelations:

It Doesn’t Fit the Narrative

To be fair, there were cases of politicization of defense and intelligence matters in the Bush years as well, with the media questioning whether or not there really were WMDs in Iraq and the whole Valerie Plame situation to name a couple of incidents.

In our case, we have first-hand evidence of a problem in this regard. We were repeatedly told that “no one wants to go there”  and that “it doesn’t fit the narrative” when we presented credible evidence of financial market manipulation that took place in 2008 and threats of worse going forward. In private meetings with Intelligence Officials, some privately acknowledged that “the narrative” prevented a thorough review of what took place in the financial crash. They said it was “in the past” and no one wanted to look back. Of course, this is from the same Administration that said last September’s Benghazi tragedy was “a long time ago.”

AP Exclusive: Air Force sidelines 17 nuke officers

One has to sometimes wonder if this is part of a broader ‘change’ of the US military, as literally dozens of high ranking officials have been replaced by the Obama administration over the last few years for unclear reasons.

WASHINGTON     (AP) — The Air Force stripped an unprecedented 17 officers of their authority to control – and, if necessary, launch – nuclear missiles after a string of unpublicized failings, including a remarkably dim review of their unit’s launch skills. The group’s deputy commander said it is suffering “rot” within its ranks.

“We are, in fact, in a crisis right now,” the commander, Lt. Col. Jay Folds, wrote in an internal email obtained by The Associated Press and confirmed by the Air Force.

Pentagon: Iran Expands Use of Proxies

Hagel shortens public version and for first time calls Iran strategy ‘defensive’

Iran’s terrorist-backing government is expanding the use of proxies around the world to carry out its military policies, according to a Pentagon report.

…

The public portion of the first report to Congress under Hagel also was sharply curtailed this year from the four-page, unclassified assessment released in April 2012, to five paragraphs for the latest unclassified executive summary of the report dated January 2013.

Pentagon spokesmen initially said the five-paragraph executive summary was classified as “for official use only” and would not be released. A spokeswoman for the office of the undersecretary of defense for intelligence later made a copy of the new assessment available to the Washington Free Beacon.

Russia charging NASA $A68m per rocket seat

It’s taken only thirty years for the United States in its golden years to go from keeping the Evil Empire in check to becoming reliant upon it — as well as beginning to give them the already-domestically-produced rope from which they will hang USA with. As long as the American shopping mall regime still has plenty of Apple stores from which to purchase a new iPad and plenty of Kardashians to follow, there is no problem or real news to be concerned of.

NASA will pay $US70.7 million ($A68.50 million) to Russia for each astronaut Moscow’s space agency ferries into orbit in 2016 and 2017, the US space agency said.

NASA and Roscomos signed a $US424 million agreement to bring six US astronauts aloft for long-term mission aboard the ISS. The deal would cover all training, launch preparation, flight operation, landing and if needed rescue efforts.

The previous agreement had set the price at $US62.7 million per seat through 2015.