Never has US intentions in Asia been so obvious. Attempts to portray America's role in the region as constructive or necessary have been ongoing since the end of World War II, however, recently, with Asia able to begin determining its own destiny for itself, the tone from Washington has become increasingly curt and direct.

US Secretary of Defense Ashton Carter's remarks during the Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore were all but a proclamation of US hegemony over Asia - a region of the planet quite literally an ocean away from Washington.

In Reuters' article, "U.S. flexes muscles as Asia worries about South China Sea row," Secretary Carter is quoted as saying:

The United States will remain the most powerful military and main underwriter of security in the [Asian] region for decades to come - and there should be no doubt about that.

The US, besides implied exceptionalism, never fully explains why it believes underwriting security for an entire region of the planet beyond its own borders is somehow justified.

Reuters would also report (emphasis added):

Any action by China to reclaim land in the Scarborough Shoal, an outcrop in the disputed sea, would have consequences, Carter said.

"I hope that this development doesn't occur, because it will result in actions being taken by the both United States and ... by others in the region which would have the effect of not only increasing tensions but isolating China," Carter told the Shangri-La Dialogue, a regional security forum in Singapore.

The term, "isolation" is key - and has defined US foreign policy toward rising powers in Asia since before even World War II.

For more than three years we have watched the COMEX very closely. The initial clues to begin watching were the waterfall events where the amounts of paper gold and silver sold simply dwarfed what was being mined. I have said many times after the smackdowns, "first, no one has this much (gold or silver), second, no trader would ever sell in this fashion and destroy the price he will receive for the sale. Clearly the sales were done to affect price downward". Each time I have written on this topic and suggested it would ultimately end with a delivery default I have been trolled. It looks very much like we will soon find out a default of delivery is not only possible but highly probable.

Starting with gold, last month (May) saw 221,000 ounces stand for delivery. This amount actually grew during the month which is highly unusual as the amount standing has ALWAYS dropped during delivery periods, this is the first time to my knowledge that the amount standing actually increased. For comparison, May 2015 delivered only 2,500 ounces. Looking back at June of 2015, the amount standing on first notice day was 509,000 ounces. The final amount delivered was 295,000. As I have written and questioned before, who would fully fund their account 100% to take delivery ...and then "go away"? The answer of course is someone willing to accept a "premium" as a bribe to not take delivery.

Hillary Clinton's designer wardrobe is under fire. And you can save your pantsuit jokes, this time it's about the cost of her clothes. During her New York primary victory speech in April she wore a $12,495 Giorgio Armani coat during which she addressed the topic of income inequality — and people on Twitter have not been shy about calling out the presidential hopeful.

Despite occurring two months ago a recent New York Post article exposed the price of the coat, which ignited major backlash toward the Democratic Party's presumptive nominee on Twitter. (Clinton's campaign spokespeople did not reply to requests for comment.)

Deployment of a second US air carrier in the Mediterranean has been called to deter a Russian task force deployed in the region, a US official told the Wall Street Journal. "It provides some needed presence in the Med to check...the Russians," a military official in Washington told the WSJ. "The unpredictability of what we did with Truman kind of makes them think twice," he said, noting that the new deployment demonstrates that the US Navy can be agile and adaptive.


Earlier this week, the highest-ranking officer on the USS Harry S. Truman carrier, Rear Adm. Bret Batchelder, told reporters visiting the carrier: "It is a demonstration of capability. That's for sure. There are undoubtedly folks who are watching that and this is just a graphic representation of what we're capable of," Batchelder said.

The US military presence in the Mediterranean has been boosted even further ahead of a NATO summit in Warsaw. The USS Dwight D. Eisenhower aircraft carrier strike group will allegedly support "US national security interests in Europe." "The USS Dwight D. Eisenhower Carrier Strike Group (IKE CSG) entered the US 6th Fleet area of operations today in support of US national security interests in Europe," the US European Command (EUCOM) has announced. The Eisenhower's strike group also includes its air wing, guided-missile cruisers San Jacinto and Monterey and a destroyer squadron with associated guided-missile destroyers Roosevelt, Mason, Nitze and Stout.

The carrier USS Dwight D. Eisenhower is to take the place of the USS Harry S. Truman that will head back to the United States, finishing its eight-month mission, Navy officials on board the Truman said, according to Reuters. In June, however, both carriers will be stationed in the Mediterranean simultaneously. Washington claims that the increased military presence is aimed at fighting Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS/ISIL) and balancing Russian extensive military efforts.

The situation in the Donetsk People's Republic deteriorated abruptly.

Over the past day the Ukrainian military shelled the territory of the Republic 582 times. The enemy launched 135 artillery shells of 152mm calibre, 46 tank shells, 244 shells of 120mm calibre, 120 shells of 82mm calibre. In addition, the enemy carried out the bombardments with infantry fighting vehicles, grenade launchers and small arms.

The enemy opened fire at the following localities: Ozeryanovka, Mayorsk, Zaitsevo, Yakovlevka, Azotny, Yasinovataya, Dokechayevsk, the Kiyevsky district, the Kuibyshevsky district, the Petrovsky district and the airport of Donetsk city.

The punishers of the 128th separate mountain infantry battalion and the 58th separate motorised infantry brigade conducted the most intensive bombardments from large-caliber artillery of the Kuibyshevsky and Kiyevsky district of Donetsk,Chervonogvardeisky and the Kirovsky district of the town of Makeyevka and the locality of Yasinovataya.

Backed by billionaires' cash, Russian food exports are now worth more than Kalashnikovs and all other military hardware combined

Deep in the Caucasus, downriver from Europe's highest peak, North Korean women roam Soviet-era hothouses growing what tycoon Vladimir Evtushenkov is betting will be his next big bounty: the T-34 battle tomato.

The plump hybrids, named for the fearsome tank that helped trounce Hitler, are the pride of the Yuzhny Agricultural Complex, a mass of greenhouses the size of 2,300 football fields between the Black and Caspian seas. Watered by melting ice from towering Mount Elbrus, they and other strains of the fruit are grown here by the millions and trucked mainly to Moscow, 18 hours' journey north.

Evtushenkov, at 67 the oldest of the top 40 Russians in the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, has impeccable timing. His AFK Sistema, which invests in everything from cellular services to medical clinics, acquired Yuzhny in December, the same month Vladimir Putin re-affirmed achieving food self-sufficiency by 2020 as a national goal. And unlike Josef Stalin's first five-year plan, which led to the Great Famine, Putin is dangling profit rather than prison to motivate the masses. Once a totem of communism, T-34 is now a symbol of patriotic capitalism.

"This is a very promising area," Evtushenkov said in an interview.

Important personalities in alternative news, or the counter-narrative, have spilled a lot of ink recently on the imminent possibility of nuclear war between the US and Russia.

Before considering the issue more closely, it is essential to clarify certain basic principles on which we should all agree as a premise for this analysis.

(a) Russia will never allow any country to make it a victim of such a situation as a world war, condemning its citizens to suffer tens of millions of deaths.

(b) The United States does not have the slightest idea of what it means to lose millions of fellow citizens in an armed conflict. Except for Pearl Harbour, Americans have never fought or seen the devastation of a domestic war against a peer competitor.

(c) Since the collapse of the USSR, NATO has lost its reason for existence. If it has continued to fuel the spending spree of the American military-industrial complex, it is because it has managed to artfully conjure various bogeymen (intercontinental missiles, imaginary enemies, "rogue states") over the past 25 years, thanks to the connivance of the corrupt mainstream media lies and deception.

(d) There is no missile shield that is capable of neutralizing with 100% accuracy a nuclear attack (of any kind, that is first strike, second strike, pre-emptive or response/retaliation). The S-400, Aegis, S-500, THAAD, and Patriot air-defense systems can all be saturated with a torrent of decoys to safeguard the nuclear-armed missiles.

Having agreed on the above, then what is the most likely scenario?

The US has succeeded at last with its audacious con-job. The lead NATO member has managed to orchestrate a huge turnaround for increased military spending among its European allies.

And at the heart of this scam is the hysterical anti-Russia propaganda campaign.

Over the past two years there has been a quickening drumbeat out of Washington and certain European capitals, warning of "Russian aggression" and "security threat".

Bombastic accusations of Russia's "annexation" of Crimea and "destabilizing" Ukraine - with the skimpiest of evidence - have all been thrown into a propaganda cauldron, stirred up and ladled out on the Western public by corporate and government-controlled "news" media.

It's so corny, it's unbelievable. But shamefully the Big Lie has worked its way into accepted policy.

On Tuesday, the US Senate Committee on Foreign Relations scheduled a two-hour anti-Russian hate-fest. Lies, misinformation and jaw-dropping stupidity were on full display. The star witness of course, was Tricky Vicky Nuland.

These congressional committee meetings crack me up. In theory, they're supposed to be interviewing witnesses to collect information. In reality it's a platform for congressmen to make speeches satisfying the special interests who own them and then they read questions from prepared notes provided to them by "experts" or lobbyists (or maybe the witnesses themselves). Then they get the answers they want to hear from the witnesses. It is 100% theater.

Nuland's opening statement was full of scare mongering about the supposed threat to peaceful civilization from Moscow. She did provide some telling facts. She said the US had already spent $600 million on "security assistance" to Ukraine - so on top of other billions in handouts from the IMF, most of which was stolen by oligarchs, that's money going directly to killing kids in Donbass. (Warning, the foregoing link is very graphic. And there are many even worse images of Kiev's terror victims I will not link to.)

Poroshenko was very clear how Kiev intends to win the war. They intend to win it by blockade and terror shelling of Donetsk. Just like Hitler planned to beat Leningrad. So they imagine.

Nuland also said the US had trained 17,000 Ukrainian troops. That's training going directly to kill kids in Donbass. She said the US had "provided counter-artillery and counter mortar radars" and "over 3,000 secure radios" and "other equipment, to help Ukrainian troops successfully resist further advances."

The world's most intriguing gathering, the Bilderberg Group, is being held in Dresden this week, with the West's rich and powerful among other things set to meditate on the migrant crisis, the next US president and UK's referendum on leaving the EU.

Some 126 high-powered figures from 20 countries have made it to the guest list, which the Group made public, along with the agenda of this year's event. Combined, the two documents give a rather detailed scope on what exactly the attendees of the 64th Bilderberg conference will be mulling over during the upcoming four days.