Turkey Will Repatriate All Gold From The US In Attempt To Ditch The Dollar

 

After Venezuela, Germany, Austria and the Netherlands prudently repatriated a substantial portion (if not all) of their physical gold held at the NY Fed or other western central banks in recent years, this morning Turkey also announced that it has decided to repatriate all its gold stored in the US Federal Reserve and deliver it to the Istanbul Stock Exchange, according to reports in Turkey’s Yeni Safak. It won’t be the first time Turkey has asked the NY Fed to ship the country’s gold back: in recent years, Turkey repatriated 220 tons of gold from abroad, of which 28.7 tons was brought back from the US last year.

According to the latest IMF data, Turkey’s gold reserves are estimated at 591 tons, worth just over $23 billion. This makes Ankara the 11th largest gold holder, behind the Netherlands and ahead of India.

Iran Officially Switches From Dollar To Euro

 

Just two weeks after “panic” hit the streets of Tehran as the Iranian government attempted to ‘fix’ the freefall of the Rial against the US Dollar…

Middle East Monitor reports that Iran’s feud with the US is set to get worse after Tehran announced this week that it will start reporting foreign currency amounts in euros rather than US dollars, as part of the country’s effort to reduce its reliance on the American currency due to political tension with Washington.

Iran heats war rhetoric to cover up military buildup in Syria

Tension between Tehran and Jerusalem has been high since April 9, when an Israel air strike knocked out a Revolutionary Guards air force command center at the Syrian T-4 air base. But, apart from blistering threats of retaliation, Iran has none nothing. Israel celebrated its Independence Day under clear skies, although the following day, Friday, April 20, the Guards deputy commander Gen. Hossein Salami warned that Iran’s hand “was on the trigger of its missiles” and Israel’s air bases were “within reach.” But Tehran sees an opportunity for taking a high tone against Israel following three developments:

Return to the Pentagon

(Shutterstock)

 

In my 2011 book, Currency Wars, I gave a detailed description of the first-ever financial war game sponsored by the Department of Defense.

This financial war game took place in 2009 at the top-secret Applied Physics Laboratory located about twenty miles north of Washington, D.C. in the Maryland countryside.

Unlike typical war games, the “rules of engagement” for this financial exercise did not permit the use of any kinetic weapons such as bombs, missiles or drones.

The only weapons allowed were financial instrument including stocks, bonds, currencies, commodities and derivatives.

Pacom Nominee: China Military Islands Now Control South China Sea

Chinese President Xi Jinping / Getty Images

 

Admiral urges rapid U.S. buildup of hypersonic and medium-range missiles to counter China threat

China has deployed electronic attack systems and other military facilities on disputed islands in the South China Sea and is now capable of controlling the strategic waterway, according to the admiral slated to be the next Pacific Command chief.

Additionally, the command nominee Adm. Philip Davidson told the Senate Armed Services Committee in a written statement this week that the military urgently needs hypersonic and other advanced weaponry to defeat China’s People’s Liberation Army in a future conflict.

Pentagon: Missile threats increasing

(Photo by: Jacquelyn Martin) John Rood, undersecretary of defense for policy, told lawmakers that the threat posed by advanced missiles is increasing. (Associated Press/File)

 

Senior Pentagon and military officials this week outlined the growing array of missile threats facing the United States from China, Russia and other states, including maneuvering hypersonic weapons.

John Rood, undersecretary of defense for policy, told a House Armed Services subcommittee hearing that the threat posed by advanced missiles is increasing.

“The United States, allies and partners confront a security environment that is more complex and volatile than any we have experienced in recent memory,” Mr. Rood told the subcommittee on strategic forces, in a likely preview of the Pentagon’s forthcoming Ballistic Missile Review, a major study that will highlight missile threats and the Trump administration’s plan for a multilayered missile defense network to counter them.

Adversaries including China, Russia, North Korea and Iran are expanding their missile forces in three ways, Mr. Rood said. They include increasing the capabilities of current missile forces; adding new and unprecedented types of missiles to their arsenals; and better integrating missiles into foreign states’ use of coercive threats, military exercises and war planning.

Iran Plans to Unveil New Missile

 

The Short-Range Shafaq Missile Has Greater Range Than Previous Versions, And The Islamic Republic’s New Attack Helicopters Have Advanced Technology, As Well.

Officials in the Iranian military have promised to unveil a new short-range missile next week that they promise will be “highly effective” in close-quarters combat.

Largest Chinese Naval Drill “In 600 Years” Begins: Live-Fire Exercise In Taiwan Strait

Lets not forget this quote, which can also be found on the quotes page:

“The central committee believes, as long as we resolve the United States problem at one blow, our domestic problems will all be readily solved. Therefore, our military battle preparation appears to aim at Taiwan, but in fact is aimed at the United States, and the preparation is far beyond the scope of attacking aircraft carriers or satellites.”

– Chi Haotian, Minster of Defense and vice-chairman of China’s Central Military Commission

 

 

Last week, the People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) assembled all of its most advanced warships, aircraft, and nuclear submarines for a massive show of force in the South China Sea. We explained, how the 3-day war drill from April 10 through 13 would be held in the waters south of China’s Hainan Island.

Asia Times estimates some 10,000 People’s Liberation Army airmen, marines and sailors boarded 48 naval warships and 76 aircraft to show their loyalty and devotion to President Xi Jinping, who was greeted on a destroyer “by a resounding chorus of platitudes from soldiers.”

Russia Threatens To Halt Critical Rocket Engine Exports To The U.S.

 

Despite earlier reported hopes that Putin seeks a deal with Trump, as opposed to escalating tensions, it appears Russia is planniong to do just that.

Last Friday (the 13th), just before the US, UK and France launched 105 Tomahawk missiles at Syria, we noted  that as part of Russian countermeasures against US sanctions, it could halt titanium exports to the US, critical for the production of Boeing airplanes, which promptly sent Boeing’s stock lower.

Pompeo meets secretly with North Korean leader

US Secretary of State-designate made a top-secret visit to North Korea over Easter weekend to meet with its leader Kim Jong Un, President Donald Trump has confirmed. His mission was to lay the groundwork for his future summit with Kim.  Speaking at his Mar-a-Lago resort on Tuesday, Trump appeared to allude to Pompeo’s secret mission when he said that the US has had “direct talks” with North Korea “at very high levels.” The president didn’t elaborate, but he did mention June as the possible timeline for his summit with the North Korean leader, rather than May as first cited.

Iranian-Backed ‘Sleeper Cell’ Militants Hibernating in U.S., Postiioned for Attack

It’s been known for years already that Iran’s proxies have infiltrated the United States and have been here for years, if not decades.

Laugh, scoff and dismiss the truth all you want. It won’t stop the fact that they’re embedded into America and waiting for the green light.

For more information on Iranian sleeper cells and Iranian proxies within the United States, see the following previous posts:

Iranian Military Agent Caught Trying to Enter U.S.

Iranian commander: We have targets within America

Sleeper Cells in the USA

Iranians prepare terror campaign inside U.S.

Iran moving sleeper cells into America?

TANCREDO TO REQUEST AL-QAIDA NUKE BRIEFING

PAUL WILLIAMS DETAILS ‘AMERICAN HIROSHIMA’

Former CIA spy advocates overthrow of Iranian regime

Gingrich Warns of Iranian Nuclear Attack

American Hiroshima

Military Leader: Iran Sending Elite Fighters Into U.S., Europe

Dick Cheney predicts US will suffer a terrorist attack ‘far deadlier’ than 9/11 before the decade is over

Iran: ‘We Welcome War With the U.S.’

Nuclear Terrorism in America

 

Members of Hezbollah / Getty Images

 

Iranian militants poised to attack U.S. homeland

Iranian-backed militants are operating across the United States mostly unfettered, raising concerns in Congress and among regional experts that these “sleeper cell” agents are poised to launch a large-scale attack on the American homeland, according to testimony before lawmakers.

Iranian agents tied to the terror group Hezbollah have already been discovered in the United States plotting attacks, giving rise to fears that Tehran could order a strike inside America should tensions between the Trump administration and Islamic Republic reach a boiling point.

Intelligence officials and former White House officials confirmed to Congress on Tuesday that such an attack is not only plausible, but relatively easy for Iran to carry out at a time when the Trump administration is considering abandoning the landmark nuclear deal and reapplying sanctions on Tehran.

China, Russia’s Sophisticated Anti-Satellite Capabilities Alarms US

illustration only

 

Russia and China have developed increasingly sophisticated space countermeasure weapons to destroy US satellites, according to a new report.

Evidence “strongly indicates” that “China has sustained a broad effort to develop a broad range of counter-space capabilities,” the US-based Secure World Foundation said in its April 2018 report.

Chinese Banks Are Laundering North Korean Cash

A truck returns over the Friendship Bridge from the North Korean town of Sinuiju to the Chinese border city of Dandong, in China’s northeast Liaoning province. (CHANDAN KHANNA/AFP/GETTY IMAGES)

 

‘The North Korea crisis is a massive distraction from the real threat posed by China and Russia.’

Chinese support of the North Korean government remains firmly in place and vital to the regime’s survival. Revelations emerged on April 12 that two major Chinese banks are providing a key financial lifeline to the nuclear-armed rogue regime of tyrant Kim Jong-un.

Both the Agricultural Bank of China and China Construction Bank have been “identified in a 2016 U.S. asset-seizure case as providing accounts for a Chinese trading company that helped North Korea launder its money,” Bloomberg wrote.

The two have been shown to hold and transfer cash entering and leaving Pyongyang, and facilitating its laundering through United States financial institutions.

These two banks, China’s second- and third-largest, each have more assets than JPMorgan Chase & Co., America’s largest bank.

In 2016, the Obama administration declined to enforce money-laundering laws against the banks. The Wall Street Journal noted at the time that this decision sent a signal to Beijing that “Chinese banks aiding North Korea are untouchable.”

Ex-CIA Chief Says Obama Rejected Cyber Action Against Russia for Election Meddling

John Brennan / Getty Images

 

Obama instead issued veiled warning to Moscow

Despite an unprecedented Russian intelligence operation to influence the 2016 presidential election, former President Barack Obama rejected a plan to conduct retaliatory cyber action against Moscow during the campaign, according to former CIA Director John Brennan.

Brennan disclosed Saturday that Obama opposed a plan to carry out “a cyber event” against the Russians because the former president feared the action would lead to more aggressive interference by Moscow.

The Grand Troika: A Chance for a World New Order

 

Back in the late summer of 2017 I wrote an analysis of the state of world affairs and international relations after two seismic geopolitical world events occurred almost simultaneously in 2016 – the UK Referendum result to Leave the European Union and the defeat of Democrat Hillary Clinton by Republican Donald Trump for the White House in the US 2016 Presidential Election. Those twin political events were like major earth shaking bombs going off creating all kinds of disturbances and tremors, aftershocks and creating the greatest of shock and bewilderment within the international political order that had held sway since the defeat of Nazism in 1945.

It had become clear to me by the summer of 2017, as I had thought for some time, that politics in Britain – and global geostrategic politics within the broader historical framework of civilizational and human development – had changed profoundly and significantly from were we had been during the 1990s-2012 period, perhaps even from where I started off life in the most intense but ending days of the Cold War in the mid 1980s.