Puppet Masters
Demand for gold was up 42 percent year on year in the first quarter of 2018 among central banks, the World Gold Council (WGC) statistics say. Russia and Turkey are the largest net buyers.
Central banks added a net total of 193.3 tons of bullion in the half of 2018, an 8 percent increase from the 178.6 tons bought in the same period last year. This marks the strongest six months for central bank gold buying since 2015, the WGC notes.
Speaking at the UN on Friday, Andrey Belousov, deputy director of the Russian Foreign Ministry's Department of Nonproliferation and Arms Control, said that Russia is indeed readying itself for war, so it can defend its people against American aggression.
At a recent meeting, the US stated that Russia is preparing for war. "Yes, Russia is preparing for war, I can confirm it."
Russia's military build-up and large-scale drills, often painted in the Western media as preparations for all-out war, are a defensive necessity, he said.
"We are preparing to defend our homeland, our territorial integrity, our principles, our values, our people."
For those of us living cozy, self-indulgent lives, complete with cappuccino mornings and cocktail sunsets, it is hard to imagine a level of economic deprivation so severe it could actually force people to pack their bags and trek thousands of miles in search of some semblance of happiness.
Yet that is exactly what is happening now as an estimated 10,000 poverty-stricken migrants, the majority from Honduras, have set off on a modern-day odyssey in the hope of reaching the 'Promised Land,' where potholes are filled with gold and cotton candy hangs heavy from trees. But what has made this march particularly sensational is that it is happening at the most pivotal moment as far as American politics is concerned.
Russian Deputy Defense Minister Aleksandr Fomin recently stated that a US reconnaissance aircraft coordinated the massive drone attack on Hmeymim's Russian airbase in Syria.
According to the deputy minister, it was an American Poseidon "with modern equipment" that carried out the control of the drones in that case.
Writing in The Times, Tory MP Bob Seely called on the UK government to consider the introduction of a 'foreign powers act,' in light of recent controversy surrounding House of Lords peers, such as Lord Greg Barker, who has come under scrutiny for his role as chairman of Russian energy firm EN+.
Seely, MP for the Isle of Wight, claims that British politicians acting as lobbyists for an "adversarial power" such as Russia, who he says is attempting to undermine UK democracy, looks dreadful.
"It's not just the accusations of lobbying but also the lack of transparency. Peers lobbying in private in support of a self-proclaimed adversarial power looks dreadful. Russia is trying to damage the credibility of democracy. If it can create division, it will do so," he wrote.
Comment: For more on the actual nefarious relationships with corrupt regimes, like Israel, Saudi Arabia, and the US, see:
- Saudis bankroll Brit MP visits, while bombing Yemen with British artillery
- UK MP Priti Patel resigns after admitting to secret meetings with Israeli politicians and trying to divert taxpayers money to Israeli arm
- Britain's biggest £3.1 billion warship parks off the US coast, looking just a little bit desperate
- UK complicit in killing Palestinians by selling arms to Israel - Sales up £100 million
- Shameless: UK sells 457% more arms to Saudi Arabia since it started bombing Yemen

Britain's Queen Elizabeth greets Mohammed bin Salman, the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia
The Duke of York was addressing a host of entrepreneurs at the Emirates Palace in Abu Dhabi on Thursday when he made his comments - declaring that he hoped his initiative would expand into other Gulf states and also Saudi Arabia.
"We have been expanding over the past two years to include other members of the GCC (Gulf Cooperation Council)," the Duke of York said.
Comment: As we've been saying for two decades now, psychopaths rule our world.

The undated photo shows the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) Alpha Spetsnaz unit during an anti-terrorism maneuver.
The FSB announced the arrests on Friday by releasing a report stating that the terrorists arrested in the Moscow region were guided by Syria-based agents originating from Central Asia, adding that "the detained persons planned to carry out high-profile terrorist attacks in Moscow, using both firearms and improvised explosive devices. Automatic firearms had been confiscated during searches, as well as money, communication means, reports about preparations for terrorist attacks, and a manual for putting together homemade explosive devices."
The FSB further claimed the group had also taken part in "serious crimes" in order to fund its activities, alongside resources it had already received from abroad, further detailing that "the cell members took every possible effort to keep their activities secret and avoid drawing the attention of law enforcement agencies."
What we can conclude from this is that armament profits take precedence over murder and genocide.
Genocide is what is going on in Yemen. I heard a report today on NPR that Yemeni are dying from starvation and from a cholera epidemic that has resulted from the Saudi destruction of the infrastructure in Yemen. The aid worker giving the report was obviously sincere and upset, but had difficulty connecting the high death rate to the Washington-sponsored war, blaming instead a 20% devaluation of the Yemen currency that raised food prices out of the reach of most Yemeni. She said that the solution to the crisis was to stabilize the currency!
It is difficult to understand why in the Western media and among Western politicians there is so much demonization of Iran, Syria, Venezuela, North Korea, China, and Russia. It is not these demonized countries that are murdering people in their embassies, conducting wars of aggression (war crimes under the Nuremburg Standard), and embargoing food and medical supplies to the populations that are being bombed. These crimes are being done by Saudi Arabia, Israel, and the United States and its NATO vassals.
Obviously, the Yemeni, like the Palestinians, don't count. Their slaughter doesn't cause a moral ripple in the West.
So many people are employed selling arms to the Saudis, it would be unfair to kick them out of a job
This is a different situation to Iraq, because the arms we sell to Saudi Arabia are real, and therefore fairly harmless, whereas Saddam had those non-existent ones, and those things are lethal
It's clear now that what Jeremy Corbyn should have done every time he met a Middle Eastern politician "linked to violence". Instead of speaking in a meeting with them and shaking their hand, he should have behaved responsibly, and sold them £4.7bn worth of weapons like we do with Saudi Arabia.
Even the CIA now seems to accept the Saudis murdered their opponent by dismembering him and disposing of him in boxes. This is why it's alright to continue selling them arms, because at least they're tidy.
It's the tyrants who leave bits everywhere we should be tough with, because it would be immoral to sell Tornado fighter planes to a regime that left it to the cleaners to clear up after they'd murdered someone.
Comment: He was doing so well until that last bit.
Trump has unequivocally condemned the 'mail-bomb attacks'. And while Democrat public figures may not have themselves concocted this pre-election scheme, the deep state interests in 'the intelligence community' who pull their strings almost certainly did.
Anyway, on Saudi Arabia, it's great to see MSM reporters finally engage a bit of dark humor when commenting on the absurdity of it all.
According to Sechin, the US "gets used to the role of the regulator of the world oil market," by replacing OPEC with the "US-PEC." In attempting to reach its goals, the US just ignores the interests of the rest of the world.
For example, sanctions against Russia and Moscow's retaliation hurts key US ally, Germany, Sechin says.
"The US accounted for only about 0.6 percent of the losses from the sanctions imposed against Russia, while Germany faced as much as 40 percent of the losses," said the head of Rosneft at the XI Eurasian Economic Forum in Verona on Thursday.













Comment: There has been an increasing amount of news coverage on the stockpiling of gold: