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Fri, 05 Nov 2021
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Warning sign? Record Swiss gold exports into the United States

US gold imports from Switzerland chart
There was a huge trend change in U.S. gold investment in May. Something quite extraordinary took place which hasn't happened for several decades. While Switzerland has been a major source of U.S. gold exports for many years, the tables turned in May as the Swiss exported a record amount of gold to the United States.

How much gold? A lot. The Swiss exported 50 times more gold in May than their monthly average (0.4 mt) since 2015.

As we can see, the Swiss gold exports to the United States are normally less than 0.5 metric ton a month. And for many months there weren't any gold exports. However, something big changed in May as Swiss gold exports surged to 20.7 mt (665.500 oz).

Comment: Very interesting development. Could be a sign something big is about to change in the global economic sphere.


Gold Seal

Journalist tears apart Western 'evidence' that Putin is behind every terror attack ever

Putin
© Sputnik/ Sergeй Guneev
Was Vladimir Putin behind the latest terrorist attacks in Nice?

According to Ukrainian 'analysts', Russian President Vladimir Putin was not only responsible for the horrific Nice terror attack, he was behind Istanbul, Brussels, Paris, Munich and many other terror attacks.

EVERYTHING BAD IN THE WORLD is orchestrated from Russia - that's the answer you will get if you listen to Ukrainian 'experts' and 'analysts'. Certainly these claims are outrageous and as always, without proof - so maybe claims from Ukraine of a Russian invasion are also untrue?


Wall Street

Deutsche Bank profits plummet 98%, CEO warns of further 'restructuring'

Statue in front of Deutsche Bank
© Kai Pfaffenbach / Reuters
Germany's biggest bank posted a net profit of €20 million in the second quarter of the year. This is down from €796 million in the same period in 2015.

Deutsche's share price fell by four percent on Wednesday after the announcement. Analysts' predictions had varied from more than a billion euro loss to half a billion profit.

Deutsche Bank chief executive John Cryan warned about the possibility of further cuts.

"If the current weak economic environment persists, we will need to be yet more ambitious in the timing and intensity of our restructuring," he said on Wednesday.

Comment: More news on Deutsche Bank woes:


Snakes in Suits

Looks are deceiving, Justin Trudeau is a member of the old-boys' club at heart

Justin Trudeau
© www.nbcnews.com
Look beyond all the selfies, the world's newest media darling, Justin Trudeau, is a neoliberal mirage. If much of the international press is to be believed, Canada's new prime minister, Justin Trudeau, is a walking, talking mixture of John F Kennedy and Martin Luther King, with a dose of Brad Pitt for good measure.

Trudeau is the attractive, telegenic eldest son of Pierre Trudeau, the long deceased former Canadian prime minister, who also cut a swashbuckling image on the global stage. Like his father, Justin Trudeau is adept at satisfying the thirst of the establishment media for pretty pictures and exploiting, these days, social media to cultivate an image of a vibrant, progressive, open-minded leader who is intent on breaking from the destructive, reactionary past.

With the aid of his equally media-savvy political confidantes, Trudeau - and his cabinet colleagues - enjoy taking and sharing online an endless stream of selfies with a legion of "ordinary" Canadians, including little, adorable children, as well as his youthful athleticism, and, perhaps most famously, while wearing his quirky, often patriotic-themed socks. The result: Canada and the world are beguiled by this modern-day, seemingly enlightened, prince.

Comment: A wolf in sheep's clothing, elected because he represented himself in a direction to which the public resonated, revealing himself to be a narcissistic version of the opposite...sort of like Obama. Maybe it is a North American continent thing.

See also:


Info

Russia announces tender for system capable of detecting potential US violations of missile treaty

Missle test
© Ian Dudley / Reuters
The Russian Defense Ministry has announced a state order for a system that would be capable of detecting and proving cases when the US tests new strategic weapons in violation of the 'New START' treaty.

The tender, placed on the Russian government website earlier this week, offers just over 72 million rubles (US$1.1 million) for the research and development of a hardware and software complex called Paritet (Russian for 'parity').

The system should be able to collect and process data on any ballistic missile tests conducted by the United States, including launches from submarines, and inform the Russian military and politicians when tests violate the 2010 Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty, also known as 'the New START.'

The tender states that the completed system should combine the general characteristics of the tests, the data from onboard monitors, and information about the types and trajectories of the tested weapons.

Play

RT Documentary: Game of Drones

Obama Game of drones
© twitter
The CIA's killer drones, stealthy and cheaper than manned war planes, have become a convenient modern weapon for finding and destroying terrorist targets abroad. They allow the US military to eliminate enemies from the safety of an air force office. That convenience, distance and safety however, may be deceptive.

Among the places under constant surveillance and frequently attacked by CIA drones are the tribal regions of Pakistan, where militants from various terrorist groups have taken refuge. According to the Bureau of Investigative Journalism, drones have killed around a thousand innocent Pakistani civilians since 2004. Locals live in constant fear of an airstrike as deadly drones hover overhead, an ever-present reminder of the reality and fragility of their lives.

Human rights activists argue that even when a target is identified correctly, the very idea of execution by a drone is against international law, human rights and the principles of democracy.

Meanwhile, many military drone operators, on the other side of the world, suffer psychological breakdown, PTSD and an all-consuming sense of guilt for launching attacks that, in all probability, caused civilian casualties.

Human rights activists argue that even when a target is identified correctly, the very idea of execution by a drone is against international law, human rights and the principles of democracy.

Meanwhile, many military drone operators, on the other side of the world, suffer psychological breakdown, PTSD and an all-consuming sense of guilt for launching attacks that, in all probability, caused civilian casualties.

Comment: Drone warfare is much worse than you might think. Check out our Behind the Headlines episode Kill Chain: America's drone warfare - Mindless mayhem or 'strategy of terror'?


Question

Double standards: If France has a state of emergency, why can't Turkey have one?

erdogan coup turkey
An Erdogan loyalist blasts the West's double standards towards his country. In these notes to RI, he provides an insight into the post-coup mood of the Turkish Erdogan majority

The theme of the failed coup in Turkey never leaves the tabloids and news channels. Erdogan's unprecedented cleansing of the military, lawyers, and, most unusually, high school teachers, has caused a wave of righteous anger and indignation among Turkey's NATO partners.

The media stirred up a panic, demonizing Erdogan's image after the power outage and blocking of NATO military at Incirlik - an unfriendly decision to put it mildly, especially against the backdrop of a renewed friendship with Russia and the fact that the airbase gave cover to the rebels. More on that later.

The coup failure was a field day for the imagination of journalists and pseudo-analysts, who have a lot of colorful ideas. It was said that Erdogan organized the coup himself, just to consolidate his power. Contradicting that, it was said Russian special services saved Erdogan from death. In various eccentric media lately the trend has been to track the "hand of the Kremlin", especially in Ukraine.

The most truthful news, which cannot be disregarded, is that NATO could suspend Turkey. Reuters quoted NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg saying that no one inside the block had yet (!) discussed the question of whether to exclude Turkey. He stressed that Turkey must bring its actions in compliance with the law and the democratic norms and principles of the alliance.

Cult

Robert Kagan and his neocon cronies back Killary

nuland kagan
As Hillary Clinton puts together what she hopes will be a winning coalition in November, many progressives remain wary — but she has the war-hawks firmly behind her.

"I would say all Republican foreign policy professionals are anti-Trump," leading neoconservative Robert Kagan told a group gathered around him, groupie-style, at a "foreign policy professionals for Hillary" fundraiser I attended last week. "I would say that a majority of people in my circle will vote for Hillary."

As the co-founder of the neoconservative think tank Project for the New American Century, Kagan played a leading role in pushing for America's unilateral invasion of Iraq, and insisted for years afterwards that it had turned out great.

Despite the catastrophic effects of that war, Kagan insisted at last week's fundraiser that U.S. foreign policy over the last 25 years has been "an extraordinary success."


Comment: Of course they would. The military-industrial complex has been making out like bandits from the chaos sown by the American Empire.


Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump's know-nothing isolationism has led many neocons to flee the Republican ticket. And some, like Kagan, are actively helping Clinton, whose hawkishness in many ways resembles their own.

The event raised $25,000 for Clinton. Two rising stars in the Democratic foreign policy establishment, Amanda Sloat and Julianne Smith, also spoke.

The way they described Clinton's foreign policy vision suggested that if elected president in November, she will escalate tensions with Russia, double down on military belligerence in the Middle East and generally ignore the American public's growing hostility to intervention.

Sloat, the former deputy assistant secretary of state in the Bureau of European and Eurasian Affairs, boasted that Clinton will be "more interventionist and forward-leaning than Obama's been" in Syria.

Dominoes

Switzerland agreed to provide US HSBC bank client data

HSBC
© Hannah McKay / Reuters
Swiss authorities have agreed to provide information to US tax authorities on accounts at HSBC.

The Swiss branch of HSBC has paid tens of millions of dollars in fines after admitting substandard compliance on tax evasion.

The Swiss government announced its plan on Tuesday to give HSBC clients the opportunity to appeal the decision, if they don't want their information passed to the US Internal Revenue Service (IRS).

According to the Swiss Federal Tax Administration, the IRS is targeting HSBC accounts "where there is evidence the US beneficial owner exercised control, directly or indirectly, over the account in violation of corporate governance ... by withdrawing funds from the account for personal use."

Propaganda

Ex-showbiz agent and political has-been Michael Foster throws tantrum that Corbyn was placed on ballot

Jeremy Corbyn
© Peter Nicholls / Reuters
Leader of the Labour Party, Jeremy Corbyn
Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn was placed on the leadership ballot because officials "misapplied" the party's rules, a millionaire and failed politician told the High Court on Tuesday. One time showbiz agent Michael Foster is suing his own party's general secretary Iain McNicol after Labour's national executive council (NEC) decided Corbyn was entitled to be automatically included on the leadership ballot.

Neither McNicol nor Corbyn were in court for the one day trial, but Corbyn's name was added to the legal documents last week after the leader won a bid to personally challenge Foster's case. Foster's legal team insisted the meaning applied to Labour's rules by a majority of the NEC during an extraordinary meeting on June 12 was not "reasonable." "The claimant has no wish to deny the second defendant [Corbyn] a fair opportunity ... of obtaining the requisite number of nominations," Gavin Millar QC said.