European Central Bank gold reserves held across 5 locations. ECB will not disclose Gold Bar List.

Table 1: Central bank FX and Gold transfers to the ECB, January 1999

 

The European Central Bank (ECB), creator of the Euro, currently claims to hold 504.8 tonnes of gold reserves. These gold holdings are reflected on the ECB balance sheet and arose from transfers made to the ECB by Euro member national central banks, mainly in January 1999 at the birth of the Euro. As of the end of December 2015, these ECB gold reserves were valued on the ECB balance sheet at market prices and amounted to €15.79 billion. 

The ECB very recently confirmed to BullionStar that its gold reserves are stored across 5 international locations. However, the ECB also confirmed that it does not physically audit its gold, nor will it divulge a bar list / weight list of these gold bar holdings.

Questions and Answers

BullionStar recently put a number of questions to the European Central Bank about the ECB’s gold holdings. The ECB Communications Directorate replied to these questions with answers that appear to include a number of facts about the ECB gold reserves which have not previously been published. The questions put to the ECB and its responses are listed below (underlining added):

China’s Big Currency Strategy

China’s growing success in internationalizing the RMB has both political and economic implications.

A Bank of International Settlements survey released on September 5 reveals that the renminbi (RMB) is now among the 10 most actively traded currencies in the world. This comes on the back of China’s recent draft plans to allow full convertibility of the RMB within the newly approved Shanghai Free Trade Zone (FTZ). Both events are intricately linked and are linked to deeper plans by the Chinese government to both internationalize the RMB and consolidate its influence and standing in global financial markets. This suggests that China’s global integration is no longer limited to trade, but is fast spilling over into the realm of finance.

China’s military buildup shows “no signs of slowing,” says Pentagon

It’s déjà vu all over again for the Pentagon’s latest annual “China power report” released on Monday, in which Defense Department policy bosses have determined that the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) is continuing to expand, modernize, and buy more and weaponry and capabilities mostly designed to keep outside powers like the United States out of its immediate territory. 

“China’s military buildup shows no signs of slowing,” said Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense David Helvey, at the Pentagon. 

What worries Helvey most is that despite increased transparency from China, the United States feels that Beijing continues to keep its plans and intentions for the PLA far too close to the vest and “many uncertainties remain” about the PLA budget.

Bin Laden died of natural causes: Former CIA agent

A former agent of the CIA has revealed that al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden has died of natural causes five years before the US announced his death.

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“In September of 1992, I was in Chechnya, that’s when I first met the man whose name was Bin Laden. This meeting took place in a two-story house in the city of Grozny; on the top floor was a family of Gamsakhurdia, the Georgian president, who then was kicked out of his country. We met on the bottom floor; Osama lived in the same building,” Yashar said.

According to the former CIA agent, he personally knew Bin Laden’s three Chechen bodyguards, who had protected him until his death and witnessed his death on June 26, 2006.

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“Only three Chechens buried him, according to his will” in the mountains on the Pakistan-Afghan border, he said.

Yashar added that the CIA abducted one of the bodyguards, Sami, before the announced killing of Bin Laden last year.

He says the bodyguard disclosed to the US the exact place of burial in the mountains.

“There was no assault. I know the American operations from the inside: they find the grave, dig out bin Laden and tell everyone about this. They need to show how technologically the security services worked, how each step was controlled, and then present it as a great victory to show that taxpayers are not paying taxes for nothing,” he said.

Washington announced on May 2, 2011 that Bin Laden was killed by US forces in his compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan.

The lack of transparency over bin Laden’s death has cast further doubt over the announcement.

Full article: Bin Laden died of natural causes: Former CIA agent (Press TV)

Russia To Conduct Inspection Mission Over United States

A group of Russian military observers will carry out an inspection mission over the United States under the Open Skies Treaty on April 8-16, the Russian Defense Ministry said.

The Russian inspectors, accompanied by U.S. officials, will be flying on board a Tupolev Tu-154 LK-1 plane from the Travis Air Force Base in California along a designated route totaling 4,250 kilometers (2,640 miles).

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It will be the eighth observation mission carried out by Russian inspectors over territories of Open Skies Treaty member countries in 2012.

The Open Skies Treaty, signed in 1992 at the initiative of U.S. President George W. Bush, establishes a regime of unarmed aerial observation flights over the territories of its 34 member states to promote openness and the transparency of military forces and activities.

Full article: Russia To Conduct Inspection Mission Over United States (Eurasia Review)