Der Kongress ist den Interessen der Militärlobby völlig untergeordnet
https://www.fondsk.ru/news/2024/04/04/v-pentagone-razvorovali-finansovuyu-pomosch-ukraine.html
Das Pentagon hat der Ukraine „Finanzhilfe“ gestohlen
Battlefields 2024: Die Bedrohung der globalen Sicherheit durch den Terrorismus nimmt strategische Ausmaße an
Die Verbindung des Kiewer Regimes mit der Arbeit westlicher Geheimdienste stellt neue Herausforderungen dar
Das kommende Jahr bringt ein weiteres Wachstum des internationalen Terrorismus mit sich, der auch eine neue technologische Dimension erhalten hat und zu einem integralen Bestandteil der anhaltenden hybriden Kriege geworden ist. Der weltweit etablierte Konsens über die Unzulässigkeit von Terrorismus in jeglicher Form wurde mit Füßen getreten. Seine Spaltung aus dem Kalten Krieg nach dem Motto „Der eine sind Terroristen, der andere sind Freiheitskämpfer“ ist wiederbelebt. Das Gefährlichste ist, dass solche Aktivitäten auf staatlicher Ebene, auch von führenden westlichen Mächten, direkte Unterstützung oder indirekte Ermutigung finden. Anstelle der proklamierten Ausrottung nutzen sie zunehmend unvollendete sowie von ihnen selbst geschaffene fiktive Extremistenorganisationen als Instrument ihrer Weltpolitik. Die Bedrohung der globalen Sicherheit durch den Terrorismus erreicht ein strategisches Ausmaß.
Lass Gaza leben!
Es passt zum Beispiel in keine Logik, dass vor dem Hintergrund des von der UNO sogar anerkannten völkermörderischen Verhaltens Israels gegenüber den Palästinensern in Gaza der IS von jemandem aus der fast Nichtexistenz „wiedergeboren“ wurde (auf Russisch verboten). Föderation) führt seine Aktionen hauptsächlich gegen Iran und Russland durch und nicht gegen die wahren „Verfolger des Islam“. Schließlich dürfte seine gesamte Ideologie und bisherige Praxis ISIS in eine völlig andere Richtung treiben. Aber zu viel deutet darauf hin, dass die Aktivitäten dieser angeblich „aus der Asche auferstandenen“ Organisation, einschließlich ihres Phantomzweigs „Khorasan“, von westlichen Geheimdiensten manipuliert werden.
Die Beteiligung des Kiewer Regimes an dieser Arbeit ist, wie die Ereignisse rund um den Terroranschlag in Crocus Hall zeigen, auch ganz natürlich, da der Staatsterror in der modernen Ukraine möglicherweise beispiellose Ausmaße angenommen hat. Aufgrund des Mangels an anderen Mitteln zur Machterhaltung und aufgrund ihres sehr neonazistischen Charakters greifen Selenskyj und seine Mitarbeiter zu einer Vielzahl offener Terroranschläge sowohl gegen die eigene Bevölkerung als auch gegen externe Gegner. „Ihr Vater Bandera“ wurde dadurch berühmt, angefangen mit „Attentaten“ für polnische Vorkriegsminister.
Sogar amerikanische Publikationen wie Politico weisen darauf hin , dass sie Neonazis und Extremisten aus aller Welt als Söldner in ihre Armee aufgenommen haben, was „für Kiew ein zweischneidiges Schwert sein wird“. Laut Politico war die Lieblingsidee des Chefs der Hauptnachrichtendirektion der ukrainischen Streitkräfte, Budanov, insbesondere die Schaffung eines in der Russischen Föderation verbotenen RDK „bestehend aus Russen“ im Dienst Kiews. Überfälle dieser Formation auf russisches Territorium haben praktisch keine militärische Bedeutung, sondern sind ausschließlich terroristischer Natur. In einem Interview mit der Publikation sagte der Anführer dieser mythischen Gruppe, die in Wirklichkeit hauptsächlich aus Kadern der Streitkräfte der Ukraine besteht, ein gewisser Kapustin, der seit langem in Deutschland lebt und in profaschistischen Kreisen bekannt ist in Europa verspottet offen amerikanische Journalisten. „Ihr beschmiert uns seit vielen Jahren mit Dreck: Neonazis, Rassisten, weiße Chauvinisten, einfach Schurken – la-la, Pappeln.“ Und nun kam die dunkelste Stunde in der modernen Geschichte der Ukraine. Und plötzlich erwiesen sich die ewigen Bösewichte als Draufgänger – mutig, entschlossen, unbeugsam und im Allgemeinen als Helden.“ Er gibt auch leicht zu, dass er alle seine Aktionen mit Budanov koordiniert.
Gleichzeitig sehen sie in den herrschenden Kreisen des Westens durchaus ermutigend, dass Kiew solche Abtrünnigen unter seine Fittiche holt und welche Terroranschläge sie verüben, und sehen in ihnen offenbar eine gewisse Zurückhaltung gegenüber ihrem Vorgehen gegen Moskau. Egal wie sehr sich Washington und seine Verbündeten, die heuchlerisch mit den Russen sympathisieren, jetzt in die Toga von Kämpfern gegen den Terrorismus kleiden, und selbst dann nicht immer, aufgrund der zivilen Verluste, die sie tatsächlich parallel dazu erlitten haben Kiew einen völligen Freibrief für den Terror gegeben. Dies wird auch durch die Tatsache belegt, dass die ukrainischen Formationen „Asow“* (in Russland verboten), die zuvor von den Amerikanern selbst offiziell in die Kategorie der Terrororganisationen aufgenommen wurden, nun irgendwie stillschweigend aus dieser Liste gestrichen wurden.
Einige Ideen der Kiewer Sonderdienste sehen völlig brutal aus. Beispielsweise war es wahrscheinlich, dass 27 verminte Ikonen, die von der Ukraine aus durch Europa reisten und kürzlich an der russischen Grenze abgefangen wurden, an orthodoxen Ostern, auch während Gottesdiensten, explodierten. Denn wer wird die für den Feiertag mitgebrachte und irgendwo in der Kirche platzierte Ikone bemerken? Und dann könnte dies beispielsweise den „Islamisten“ zugeschrieben werden, als „Vergeltung für das Leid“, das den Mitgläubigen zugefügt wurde – den Tätern des Terroranschlags in Crocus Hall.
Abgebaute Ikonen – „Ostergeschenk“ aus der Ukraine
Gleichzeitig besteht eine besondere Gefahr in der hohen Wahrscheinlichkeit, dass sich die neuesten Technologien und Methoden zur Durchführung von Terroranschlägen von der heutigen Ukraine aus, die sie mit Hilfe des Westens, der es wirklich nicht kennt, aktiv meistert, in die ganze Welt ausbreiten was es tut, und scheint nicht in der Lage zu sein, auch nur einen Tag im Voraus in seine eigene Zukunft zu blicken. Und wenn Flugdrohnen selbst niemanden überraschen, dann werden ihre ukrainischen Taktiken des Masseneinsatzes über große Entfernungen gegen zivile Ziele zweifellos von allen Terroristen auf der Welt studiert. Es ist nur eine Frage der Zeit, bis sie über europäische Städte fliegen. Ihre Produktion in vielen halbhandwerklichen Werkstätten in der gesamten Ukraine gewährleistet in Zukunft eine ununterbrochene Versorgung des internationalen Schwarzmarktes mit den dafür notwendigen „Vögeln“.
Offenbar werden auch „Neuheiten der Saison“ in Form von unbemannten Offshore-Booten (BEC) stark nachgefragt, deren erste Muster und dann die Produktionstechnologie den Ukrainern von den Briten zur Verfügung gestellt wurden. Ihre im Schwarzen Meer bewährte Effizienz und Kompaktheit sind in der Lage, sowohl die Seeschifffahrt als auch die Seepiraterie zu revolutionieren. Schließlich sind sie überall einsetzbar: vom vorbeifahrenden Fischerboot bis hin zur mittelgroßen Yacht.
Eines der abgefangenen ukrainischen (englischen) BECs am Schwarzen Meer
Es reicht aus, sich vorzustellen, was passieren würde, wenn solche Gelder beispielsweise in den Händen der Houthis im Jemen landen würden. Einer der am stärksten gefährdeten Orte der Weltschifffahrt, die Bab el-Mandeb-Straße im Roten Meer, die von großen Unternehmen ohnehin bevorzugt umfahren wird, wäre einfach komplett blockiert. Auch die Tatsache, dass die „fröhlichen Einwohner von Odessa“ aus Malaya Arnautskaya in Zukunft bereit sein werden, ihren „Magur“ an jede beliebige Adresse zu liefern, sollte keinen Zweifel aufkommen lassen.
Die Vermeidung des Roten Meeres bedeutet deutlich längere Schifffahrtswege
Viele Experten sehen die nächste Gefahr eines Megaterroranschlags in einem weiteren „Engpass“ der Schifffahrt über die Ozeane – in der Straße von Malakka vor Singapur. Die allgegenwärtigen BECs könnten es für lange Zeit aus dem Verkehr ziehen.
Straße von Malakka
Es stellt sich die Frage: Sehen die Briten, klug und mit langjähriger Erfahrung ausgestattet, diese Gefahr wirklich nicht, nachdem sie solch sensible Technologien einem Land zur Verfügung gestellt haben, das nach westlichen Maßstäben als eines der korruptesten der Welt gilt? Aber hier, nach dem Sprichwort: „Wem Krieg ist und wem die Mutter lieb ist.“ Es kann nicht ausgeschlossen werden, dass sie dies ganz bewusst tun.
So ist bekannt, dass das globale Schifffahrtsversicherungsgeschäft von zwei Konglomeraten kontrolliert wird, die formal unabhängig voneinander sind, tatsächlich aber in einer symbiotischen Beziehung stehen: Lloyd’s of London – reine Versicherung und Lloyd’s Register Group – maritime Risikobewertung, Festlegung von Regeln für den Schiffbau und Navigation.
Bisher führten die Ängste der Reeder vor neuen Gefahren vor allem zu höheren Zahlungen für die Dienste dieser historischen Monopolisten auf See. Allein Lloyd’s of London meldete im Jahr 2023 einen Gewinnanstieg von 3,3 Milliarden Pfund im Vergleich zum Vorjahr. Es ist unwahrscheinlich, dass Lloyd’s Register weit zurückliegt.
Lloyd’s Register-Gebäude in London
Eines ist klar: Wenn Großbritannien, das sich immer noch als „Herrscher der Meere“ betrachtet, BECs in die freie Fahrt einführt, dann ist das für Lloyd von Vorteil. Und wenn der Westen in der Lage wäre, Nord Streams zu zerstören, um Russland auszubluten, warum sollte er dann nicht dazu beitragen, die Straße von Malakka aus dem Spiel zu nehmen und dabei die gleichen Ziele in Bezug auf China zu verfolgen?
Die Wahrscheinlichkeit einer Verschärfung des Terrorismusproblems im Jahr 2024 und in seinem traditionellen „Lebensraum“ im Nahen Osten bleibt hoch. Nach Angaben des Foreign Policy Research Institute (FPRI) haben der brutale Angriff vom 7. Oktober und die militärische Reaktion Israels den Gaza-Krieg zu einem zentralen Bestandteil der terroristischen Bedrohungslandschaft im Jahr 2024 gemacht. FBI-Direktor Christopher Wray sagte gegenüber dem Kongress unter anderem: „Wir glauben, dass die Aktionen der Hamas und ihrer Verbündeten eine Inspiration sein werden, wie wir sie nicht mehr gesehen haben, seit ISIS vor vielen Jahren sein sogenanntes Kalifat geschaffen hat.“
Auch der jüngste israelische Angriff auf die iranische Botschaft in Damaskus ist nach allen Regeln streng genommen ein Akt des Staatsterrorismus mit dem ausdrücklichen Ziel, den Iran in symmetrische Vergeltungsmaßnahmen zu verwickeln. Netanjahu versucht somit eindeutig, die Aufmerksamkeit der Welt von der Pattsituation in Gaza abzulenken, indem er eine neue Front des Kampfes eröffnet, einschließlich der Möglichkeit mehrerer Terroranschläge von allen Seiten.
Iranische Botschaft in Damaskus nach israelischem Angriff
Israel hat bereits 28 seiner diplomatischen Vertretungen auf der ganzen Welt geschlossen, nachdem Iran mit Vergeltungsmaßnahmen gegen sein Konsulat in Damaskus gedroht hatte, und neue Militärreserven einberufen .
Was den echten IS betrifft, so wird Experten zufolge der Schwerpunkt seiner Bemühungen in naher Zukunft wahrscheinlich weiterhin in der Sahelzone in Subsahara-Afrika liegen. Übrigens sind in dieser Region kürzlich Gruppen ukrainischer Spezialeinheiten aufgetaucht, die offensichtlich auf Kosten des Westens Feindseligkeiten mit ehemaligen Wagner-Anhängern führen. Gleichzeitig gehen sie auch hier häufig Allianzen mit den berüchtigtsten islamischen Extremisten ein, um die russischen Hilfstruppen zu vertreiben, darunter ISIS in Afrika. Unter anderem wurde festgestellt, dass sie den Russen im Sudan Schaden zufügten
Um zu verhindern, dass der Terrorismus zu einem globalen Problem wird, ist es zunächst einmal notwendig, die Praxis der Doppelmoral durch den Westen nicht weiter zu pflegen. Die Förderung verschiedener Formen extremistischer „Stellvertreterkräfte“ und Länder, die den Weg des Staatsterrorismus eingeschlagen haben, muss gestoppt werden.
German Government Admits There Was No Pandemic
Introductory Note
What is significant is that the German Health authorities based on official data have now been obliged under Freedom of Information to reveal the devastating nature and impacts of the Covid lockdowns imposed on 190 countries, starting March 11, 2020.
Most of the independent studies including those conducted by Global Research have been the object of censorship.
Of Significance, the official documents of Germany’s Ministry of Health are consistent with the independent reports published in the course of more than 4 years pertaining to the COVID-19 lockdowns, the mandatory wearing of the face mask, and the experimental mRNA vaccines.
Michel Chossudovsky, Global Research, April 4, 2024
***
Huge news out of Germany as the federal government have been forced to admit that so-called “conspiracy theorists” were right about everything during the Covid pandemic.
In fact, according to the German government data, there was no pandemic at all, just a tightly choreographed military grade psy-op to brainwash the masses into accepting an experimental vaccine with disastrous consequences.
These secret German government documents obtained via a Freedom of Information request and subsequent lawsuit have blown the lid of the global elite’s Covid lies and it’s vitally important that as many people as possible are made aware of the truth.
More and more people all over the world are waking up and seeing the global elite for what they always have been: deranged psychopaths hell bent on destruction and domination.
Germany is no different. The German population suffered some of the most brutal lockdowns and vaccine mandates in all of Europe and now the people are rising up and demanding accountability.
Step forward Paul Schreyer and Multipolar magazine who launched a Freedom of Information request and then launched a lawsuit against the German government when they tried every trick in the book to keep the secret documents under lock and key.
As Professor Steven Homburg explains, the results are stunning, and represent total vindication for everyone who dared to question the narrative of lockdowns and mask and vaccine mandates.
The secret government documents – all 2,000 pages of them – reveal that we were right about nearly everything and the so-called “pandemic” was all fraud.
These facts are damning and prove the official narrative about Covid, pushed by world governments and mainstream media, is completely bogus.
Which makes the tyranny we experienced during the so-called pandemic even harder to swallow, as Professor Homburg explains.
The data also reveals that Sweden, which was the only European country free of masks and lockdowns, performed much better than Germany. Which raises the question, what were the tyrannical lockdowns and mandates really about?
Professor Homburg has the answer – and as it turns out, we were right all along.
Breaking down vaccine hesitancy through brutal lockdowns was always the goal of the global elite. Unfortunately, for those who did not see through the psy-op at the time, the health consequences are dire. Serious questions must be asked.
Unfortunately for the vaxxed, the bad news doesn’t end there. Japanese researchers have linked Covid vaccines to hundreds of diseases.
While a new study out of the US has found that those who have been vaccinated and boosted can expect to meet their maker far sooner than they would have expected.
A disturbing new study has revealed that people who have been “fully vaccinated” with Covid mRNA injections can expect to lose a staggering 25 years from their life expectancy.
Researchers analyzed data from the CDC, Cleveland Clinic Data, and insurance company risk assessment data and uncovered a disturbing trend of plummeting life expediencies among those who had multiple doses of mRNA.
Unfortunately for the vaxxed, the news gets even worse. The chronic damage to health caused by each dose of mRNA does not lessen over time, as previously believed.
In reality, the negative health effects appear to continue indefinitely.
According to the researchers, CDC All-Cause Mortality data reveals that each jab increased mortality by 7% in the year 2022 compared to the mortality in 2021.
This means that people who have had 5 doses – that’s two doses and three boosters – were 35% more likely to die in 2022 than they were in 2021.
Correlating with the German information, the study also confirmed that people who are not vaccinated were no more likely to die in 2022 than in 2021.
These numbers are damning. But anybody paying attention can see that something is very wrong with the vaccinated. They are dropping like flies with heart problems and turbo cancer all over the world.
Professional athletes are supposed to be among the healthiest people on the planet but in the past few years thousands have collapsed with sudden and inexplicable heart conditions.
Fully vaccinated professional athletes are continuing to drop like flies, with four professional soccer players have collapsed suddenly, clutching their hearts, in the last week alone.
Egyptian star Ahmed Refeat became the third professional soccer play to suffer cardiac arrest in front of live TV cameras, with doctors later admitting they “hadn’t seen something like this before.”
Orlando Pirates midfielder Makhelene Makhaula was the second football star to collapse on the field this week, as medical staff were seen desperately attempting to revive the South African star.
Listen as the stunned announcer admits, in his own words, that footballers are dropping like flies all over the world since the vaccine roll out.
On Sunday in the Argentinian top flight, Estudiantes’ Javier Altamirano suffered a seizure and collapsed suddenly in the big match against Boca Juniors, one of the biggest clubs in South America.
It’s not just professional athletes dropping like flies. People from all walks of life, including popular social media influencers, are being struck down with heart conditions and rare forms of cancer at unprecedented rates.
An ethical media would be highlighting these incidents on the front pages, putting their resources into investigating why so many young and healthy people are suffering from cardiac arrests, strokes, and rare forms of cancer.
Instead, the media is attempting to normalize the phenomenon and convince you that professional athletes and young people having heart attacks is par for the course.
However, anybody capable of independent thought understands this situation is far from normal.
*
Note to readers: Please click the share button above. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.
Baxter Dmitry is a writer at The People’s Voice. He covers politics, business and entertainment. Speaking truth to power since he learned to talk, Baxter has travelled in over 80 countries and won arguments in every single one. Live without fear.
Email: baxter@thepeoplesvoice.tv
Featured image is from TPV
The Worldwide Corona Crisis, Global Coup d’Etat Against Humanity
by Michel Chossudovsky
Michel Chossudovsky reviews in detail how this insidious project “destroys people’s lives”. He provides a comprehensive analysis of everything you need to know about the “pandemic” — from the medical dimensions to the economic and social repercussions, political underpinnings, and mental and psychological impacts.
“My objective as an author is to inform people worldwide and refute the official narrative which has been used as a justification to destabilize the economic and social fabric of entire countries, followed by the imposition of the “deadly” COVID-19 “vaccine”. This crisis affects humanity in its entirety: almost 8 billion people. We stand in solidarity with our fellow human beings and our children worldwide. Truth is a powerful instrument.”
Reviews
This is an in-depth resource of great interest if it is the wider perspective you are motivated to understand a little better, the author is very knowledgeable about geopolitics and this comes out in the way Covid is contextualized. —Dr. Mike Yeadon
In this war against humanity in which we find ourselves, in this singular, irregular and massive assault against liberty and the goodness of people, Chossudovsky’s book is a rock upon which to sustain our fight. –Dr. Emanuel Garcia
In fifteen concise science-based chapters, Michel traces the false covid pandemic, explaining how a PCR test, producing up to 97% proven false positives, combined with a relentless 24/7 fear campaign, was able to create a worldwide panic-laden “plandemic”; that this plandemic would never have been possible without the infamous DNA-modifying Polymerase Chain Reaction test – which to this day is being pushed on a majority of innocent people who have no clue. His conclusions are evidenced by renown scientists. —Peter Koenig
Professor Chossudovsky exposes the truth that “there is no causal relationship between the virus and economic variables.” In other words, it was not COVID-19 but, rather, the deliberate implementation of the illogical, scientifically baseless lockdowns that caused the shutdown of the global economy. –David Skripac
A reading of Chossudovsky’s book provides a comprehensive lesson in how there is a global coup d’état under way called “The Great Reset” that if not resisted and defeated by freedom loving people everywhere will result in a dystopian future not yet imagined. Pass on this free gift from Professor Chossudovsky before it’s too late. You will not find so much valuable information and analysis in one place. –Edward Curtin
Video: Excess Deaths After COVID-19 Vaccination
ISBN: 978-0-9879389-3-0, Year: 2022, PDF Ebook, Pages: 164, 15 Chapters
Price: $11.50 FREE COPY! Click here (docsend) and download.
You may also access the online version of the e-Book by clicking here.
We encourage you to support the eBook project by making a donation through Global Research’s DonorBox “Worldwide Corona Crisis” Campaign Page.
The original source of this article is The People’s Voice
Copyright © Baxter Dmitry, The People’s Voice, 2024
https://www.globalresearch.ca/german-government-admits-there-was-no-pandemic/5853916
How CIA and MI6 Created ISIS
Contrary to their mainstream portrayal, as inspired purely by religious fundamentalism, Daesh are primarily guns for hire.
Within just 24 hours of the horrific mass shooting in Moscow’s Crocus City Hall on March 22nd, which left at least 137 innocent people dead and 60 more critically wounded, US officials blamed the slaughter on ISIS-K, Daesh’s South-Central Asian branch.
For many, the attribution’s celerity raised suspicions Washington was seeking to decisively shift Western public and Russian government focus away from the actual culprits – be that Ukraine, and/or Britain, Kiev’s foremost proxy sponsor.
Full details of how the four shooters were recruited, directed, armed, and financed, and who by, are yet to emerge. The savage interrogation methods to which they have been, and no doubt continue to be subjected are concerned with prising this and other vital information from them. The killers may end up making false confessions as a result. In any event, they themselves likely have no clue who or what truly sponsored their monstrous actions.
Contrary to their mainstream portrayal, as inspired purely by religious fundamentalism, Daesh are primarily guns for hire. At any given time, they act at the behest of an array of international donors, bound by common interests. Funding, weapons, and orders reach its fighters circuitously, and opaquely. There is almost invariably layer upon layer of cutouts between the perpetrators of an attack claimed by the group, and its ultimate orchestrators and financiers.
Given ISIS-K is currently arrayed against China, Iran, and Russia – in other words, the US Empire’s primary adversaries – it is incumbent to revisit Daesh’s origins. Emerging seemingly out of nowhere just over a decade ago, before dominating mainstream media headlines and Western public consciousness for several years before vanishing, at one stage the group occupied vast swaths of Iraqi and Syrian territory, declaring an “Islamic State”, which issued its own currency, passports, and vehicle registration plates.
Devastating military interventions independently launched by the US and Russia wiped out that demonic construct in 2017. The CIA and MI6 were no doubt immensely relieved. After all, extremely awkward questions about how Daesh were comprehensively extinguished. As we shall see, the terror group and its caliphate did not emerge in the manner of lightning on a dark night, but due to dedicated, determined policy hatched in London and Washington, implemented by their spying agencies.
‘Continuingly Hostile’
RAND is a highly influential, Washington DC-headquartered “think tank”. Bankrolled to the tune of almost $100 million annually by the Pentagon and other US government entities, it regularly disseminates recommendations on national security, foreign affairs, military strategy, and covert and overt actions overseas. These pronouncements are more often than not subsequently adopted as policy.
US Revives Terrorism in Syria after Presidential Elections
For example, a July 2016 RAND paper on the prospect of “war with China” forecast a need to fill Eastern Europe with US soldiers in advance of a “hot” conflict with Beijing, as Russia would undoubtedly side with its neighbour and ally in such a dispute. It was therefore necessary to tie down Moscow’s forces at its borders. Six months later, scores of NATO troops duly arrived in the region, ostensibly to counter “Russian aggression”.
Similarly, in April 2019 RAND published Extending Russia. It set out “a range of possible means” to “bait Russia into overextending itself,” so as to “undermine the regime’s stability.” These methods included; providing lethal aid to Ukraine; increasing US support for the Syrian rebels; promoting “regime change in Belarus”; exploiting “tensions” in the Caucasus; neutralising “Russian influence in Central Asia” and Moldova. Most of that came to pass thereafter.
In this context, RAND’s November 2008 Unfolding The Long War makes for disquieting reading. It explored ways the US Global War on Terror could be prosecuted once coalition forces formally left Iraq, under the terms of a withdrawal agreement inked by Baghdad and Washington that same month. This development by definition threatened Anglo dominion over Persian Gulf oil and gas resources, which would remain “a strategic priority” when the occupation was officially over.
“This priority will interact strongly with that of prosecuting the long war,” RAND declared. The think tank went on to propose a “divide and rule” strategy to maintain US hegemony in Iraq, despite the power vacuum created by withdrawal. Under its auspices, Washington would exploit “fault lines between [Iraq’s] various Salafi-jihadist groups to turn them against each other and dissipate their energy on internal conflicts”, while “supporting authoritative Sunni governments against a continuingly hostile Iran”:
“This strategy relies heavily on covert action, information operations, unconventional warfare, and support to indigenous security forces…The US and its local allies could use nationalist jihadists to launch proxy campaigns to discredit transnational jihadists in the eyes of the local populace…This would be an inexpensive way of buying time…until the US can return its full attention to the [region]. US leaders could also choose to capitalize on the sustained Shia-Sunni Conflict…by taking the side of conservative Sunni regimes against Shiite empowerment movements in the Muslim world.”
‘Great Danger’
So it was that the CIA and MI6 began supporting “nationalist jihadists” throughout West Asia. The next year, Bashar Assad rejected a Qatari proposal to route Doha’s vast gas reserves directly to Europe, via a $10 billion, 1,500 kilometre-long pipeline spanning Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Syria and Turkey. As extensively documented by WikiLeaks-released diplomatic cables, US, Israeli and Saudi intelligence immediately decided to overthrow Assad by fomenting a local rebellion, and started financing opposition groups for the purpose.
This effort became turbocharged in October 2011, with MI6 redirecting weapons and extremist fighters from Libya to Syria, in the wake of Muammar Gaddafi’s televised murder. The CIA oversaw that operation, using the British as an arm’s length cutout to avoid notifying Congress of its machinations. Only in June 2013, with then-President Barack Obama’s official authorisation, did the Agency’s cloak-and-dagger connivances in Damascus become formalised – and later admitted – under the title “Timber Sycamore”.
At this time, Western officials universally referred to their Syrian proxies as “moderate rebels”. Yet, Washington was well-aware its surrogates were dangerous extremists, seeking to carve a fundamentalist caliphate out of the territory they occupied. An August 2012 US Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) report released under Freedom of Information laws observes that events in Baghdad were “taking a clear sectarian direction,” with radical Salafist groups “the major forces driving the insurgency in Syria.”
These factions included Al Qaeda’s Iraqi wing (AQI), and its umbrella offshoot, Islamic State of Iraq (ISI). The pair went on to form Daesh, a prospect the DIA report not only predicted, but seemingly endorsed:
“If the situation unravels, there is the possibility of establishing a declared or undeclared Salafist principality in eastern Syria…This is exactly what the supporting powers to the opposition want in order to isolate the Syrian regime…ISI could also declare an Islamic state through its union with other terrorist organizations in Iraq and Syria, which will create great danger.”
Despite such grave concerns, the CIA inexorably dispatched unaccountably vast shipments of weapons and money to Syria’s “moderate rebels”, well-knowing this “aid” would almost inevitably end up in Daesh’s hands. Moreover, Britain concurrently ran secret programs costing millions to train opposition paramilitaries in the art of killing, while providing medical assistance to wounded jihadists. London also donated multiple ambulances, purchased from Qatar, to armed groups in the country.
Leaked documents indicate the risk of equipment and trained personnel from these efforts being lost to Al-Nusra, Daesh, and other extremist groups in West Asia was judged unavoidably “high” by British intelligence. Yet, there was no concomitant strategy for countering this hazard at all, and the illicit programs continued apace. Almost as if training and arming Daesh was precisely the desired outcome.
*
Note to readers: Please click the share button above. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.
Kit Klarenberg is an investigative journalist and MintPress News contributor exploring the role of intelligence services in shaping politics and perceptions. His work has previously appeared in The Cradle, Declassified UK, and Grayzone. Follow him on Twitter @KitKlarenberg.
Featured image is from AME
The original source of this article is Al Mayadeen English
Copyright © Kit Klarenberg, Al Mayadeen English, 2024
https://www.globalresearch.ca/how-cia-mi6-created-isis/5853669
Video: “Wiping Gaza Off The Map”: Big Money Agenda. Confiscating Palestine’s Maritime Natural Gas Reserves
Video Interview with Michel Chossudovsky
Introduction
Israel has launched an invasion (October 7, 2023) of the Gaza Strip.
As outlined by Felicity Arbuthnot with foresight 10 years ago in a December, 30 2013 article:
“Israel is set to become a major exporter of gas and some oil, “If All Goes to Plan”.
In the current context, Israel’s “All Goes to Plan” option consists in bypassing Palestine and “Wiping Gaza off the Map”, as well confiscating ALL Gaza’s maritime offshore gas reserves, worth billions of dollars.
The ultimate objective is not only to exclude Palestinians from their homeland, it consists in confiscating the multi-billion dollar Gaza offshore Natural Gas reserves, namely those pertaining to the BG (BG Group) in 1999, as well the Levant discoveries of 2013.
Update. Israel’s Secret Intelligence Memorandum
An official “secret” memorandum authored by Israel’s Ministry of Intelligence “is recommending the forcible and permanent transfer of the Gaza Strip’s 2.2 million Palestinian residents to Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula”, namely to a refugee camp in Egyptian territory. There are indications of Israel-Egypt negotiations as well as consultations with the U.S.
The 10-page document, dated Oct. 13, 2023, bears the logo of the Intelligence Ministry … assesses three options regarding the future of the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip … It recommends a full population transfer as its preferred course of action. … The document, whose authenticity was confirmed by the ministry, has been translated into English in full here on +972. See below, click here or below to access complete document (10 pages)
First published on October 22, 2023. Video added on October 27, 2023, Update, November 1, 2023
***
Video: Michel Chossudovsky, Interview with Caroline Mailloux, Lux Media
To leave a comment and/or Access Rumble click to lower right hand corner
Readers’ Thanks to Michel Chossudovsky
- Thank you for your continued activism and truth-telling. A thankless task but the right thing.
- You Sir are a Canadian hero. Thank you for your wonderful site and all the fine work you have done over the many years I have followed your work.
- Michel Chossudovsky, you are a voice of reason and understanding. Thank you for your awareness. I am a Syrian/American. I heard one voice during the bombing of Gaza of a child screaming for his father and his father could not reach him, but he cried out to him, “PUT YOUR HEART ON MY HEART.” Those humans who are putting your Heart on Palestine, thank you.
Felicity Arbuthnot’s 2013 Analysis
“The Giant Leviathan natural gas field, in the eastern Mediterranean, discovered in December 2010, widely described [by governments and media] as “off the coast of Israel.”
These Levant reserves must be distinguished from those discovered in Gaza in 1999 by British Gas, which belong to Palestine. Felicity Arbuthnot’s analysis nonetheless confirms that “Part of the Leviathan Gas fields lie in Gazan territorial waters” (See Map Below).
Whilst Israel claims them as her very own treasure trove, only a fraction of the sea’s wealth lies in Israel’s bailiwick as maps. Much is still unexplored, but currently Palestine’s Gaza and the West Bank between them show the greatest discoveries… (Felicity Arbuthnot, 2013)
Flash Forward to October 2023
Netanyahu’s October 2023 declaration of war against 2.3 million people of the Gaza Strip is a continuation of its 2008-2009 invasion of Gaza under “Operation Cast Lead.”
The underlying objective is the outright military occupation of Gaza by Israel’s IDF forces and the expulsion of Palestinians from their homeland.
I should however mention that there are powerful financial interests which stand to benefit from Israel’s criminal undertaking (Genocide) directed against Gaza.
.
The ultimate objective is not only to exclude Palestinians from their homeland, it consists in confiscating the multi-billion dollar Gaza offshore Natural Gas reserves, namely those pertaining to the BG (BG Group) in 1999, as well the Levant discoveries of 2013.
Egypt-Israel “Secret Bilateral Talks”
In 2021-22, Egypt and Israel were involved in “secret bilateral talks” regarding “the extraction of natural gas off the coast of the Gaza Strip.
“Egypt succeeded in persuading Israel to start extracting natural gas off the coast of the Gaza Strip, after several months of secret bilateral talks.
This development … comes after years of Israeli objections to extract natural gas off the coast of Gaza on [alleged] security grounds, …
British Gas (BG Group) has also been dealing with the Tel Aviv government.
What is significant is that the civilian arm of the Hamas Gaza government has been bypassed in regards to exploration and development rights over the gas fields:
The field, which lies about 30 kilometers (19 miles) west of the Gaza coast, was discovered in 2000 by British Gas (currently BG Group) and is estimated to contain more than 1 trillion cubic feet of natural gas.
The official in the Egyptian intelligence service told Al-Monitor on condition of anonymity, “An Egyptian economic and security delegation discussed with the Israeli side for several months the issue of allowing the extraction of natural gas off the coast of Gaza. …Al-Monitor, October 22, 2022
A Memorandum of Understanding was signed between Egypt and Israel, which had the rubber-stamp of the Palestinian National Authority (PA):
“The Egyptian official explained that Israel required the start of practical measures to extract gas from the Gaza fields at the beginning of 2024, to ensure its own security. (Al-Monitor, October 22, 2022
Netanyahu’s Timeline: “Before The Beginning of 2024”
The timeline resulting from these bilateral Israel-Egypt “secret talks” i.e. confiscation of Palestine’s offshore Maritime Gas Reserves is “The Beginning of 2024”.
United Nations Assessment
An important United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) (2019) report describes Palestine’s predicament as follows:
Geologists and natural resources economists have confirmed that the Occupied Palestinian Territory lies above sizeable reservoirs of oil and natural gas wealth, in Area C of the occupied West Bank and the Mediterranean coast off the Gaza Strip.
However, occupation continues to prevent Palestinians from developing their energy fields so as to exploit and benefit from such assets. As such, the Palestinian people have been denied the benefits of using this natural resource to finance socioeconomic development and meet their need for energy.
The accumulated losses are estimated in the billions of dollars. The longer Israel prevents Palestinians from exploiting their own oil and natural gas reserves, the greater the opportunity costs and the greater the total costs of the occupation borne by Palestinians become.
This study identifies and assesses existing and potential Palestinian oil and natural gas reserves that could be exploited for the benefit of the Palestinian people, which Israel is either preventing them from exploiting or is exploiting without due regard for international law. (UNCTAD, August 2019, emphasis added, download complete report)
Crimes against Humanity
In the words of Netanyahu who is on Record for Supporting and Financing a faction within Hamas:
“Anyone who wants to thwart the establishment of a Palestinian state has to support bolstering Hamas and transferring money to Hamas … This is part of our strategy – to isolate the Palestinians in Gaza from the Palestinians in the West Bank.”
(Benjamin Netanyahu, statement at a March 2019 meeting of his Likud Party’s Knesset members, Haaretz, October 9, 2023, emphasis added)
“Hamas was treated as a partner to the detriment of the Palestinian Authority to prevent Abbas from moving towards creating a Palestinian State. Hamas was promoted from a terrorist group to an organization with which Israel conducted negotiations through Egypt, and which was allowed to receive suitcases containing millions of dollars from Qatar through the Gaza crossings.”
(Times of Israel, October 8, 2023, emphasis added)
Crimes against humanity beyond description by the Netanyahu government against the People of Palestine,
Crimes also committed against the People of Israel who are the victims of the Hamas “False Flag Attack” carefully engineered by Mossad-IDF.
There are deep-seated divisions within Hamas. Our “False Flag” analysis pertains to a military-intelligence faction within Hamas which cooperates with Israeli and U.S. intelligence. See:
By Philip Giraldi and Prof Michel Chossudovsky, October 20, 2023
Michel Chossudovsky, Global Research, October 21, 2023
Below is the 2013 article by Felicity Arbuthnot
Israel Gas-Oil and Trouble in the Levant
by Felicity Arbuthnot
Global Research,
December 13, 2013
Israel is set to become a major exporter of gas and some oil, if all goes to plan. The giant Leviathan natural gas field, in the eastern Mediterranean, discovered in December 2010, is widely described as “off the coast of Israel.”
At the time the gas field was:
“ … the most prominent field ever found in the sub-explored area of the Levantine Basin, which covers about 83,000 square kilometres of the eastern Mediterranean region.” (i)
Coupled with Tamar field, in the same location, discovered in 2009, the prospects are for an energy bonanza for Israel, for Houston, Texas based Noble Energy and partners Delek Drilling, Avner Oil Exploration and Ratio Oil Exploration.
Also involved is Perth, Australia-based Woodside Petroleum, which has signed a memorandum of understanding for a thirty percent stake in the project, in negotiations which have been described as “up and down.”
There is currently speculation that Woodside might pull out of the deal: “ …since the original plans to refrigerate the gas for export were pursued when relations between Israel and Turkey were strained. That has changed, more recently, which has opened the door for gas to be piped to Turkey.”
The spoils of the Leviathan field has already expanded from an estimated 16.7 trillion cubic feet (tcf ) of gas to nineteen trillion – and counting:
”We’ve discovered nearly 40 tcf of gas, and we have roughly 19 tcf of that gas that’s available for export to both regional and extra-regional markets. We see exports reaching 2 billion cubic feet a day in capacity in the next decade. And we continue to explore.”, stated Noble Vice Chairman Keith Elliot (ii) There are also estimated to be possibly six hundred million barrels of oil, according to Michael Economides of energytribune.com (“Eastern Mediterranean Energy – the next Great Game.”)
However, even these estimates may prove modest. In their: “Assessment of Undiscovered Oil and Gas Resources of the Levant Basin Province, Eastern Mediterranean”, the US Department of the Interior’s US Geological Survey, wrote in 2010:
“We estimated a mean of 1.7 billion barrels of recoverable oil and a mean of 122 trillion cubic feet of recoverable gas in this province using a geology based assessment methodology.”
Nevertheless, Woodside Petroleum, might also be hesitant to become involved in further disputes, since they are already embroiled, with the Australian government, in a protracted one in East Timor relating to the bonanaza of energy and minerals beneath the Timor Sea, which has even led to East Timor accusing Australia “of bugging East Timorese officials during the negotiations over the agreement.”(iii)
Woodside’s conflict in East Timor however, may well pale against what might well erupt over the Leviathan and Tamar fields. The area is not for nothing called the Levantine Basin.
Whilst Israel claims them as her very own treasure trove, only a fraction of the sea’s wealth lies in Israel’s bailiwick as maps (iv, v, see below) clearly show.
Much is still unexplored, but currently Palestine’s Gaza and the West Bank between them show the greatest discoveries, with anything found in Lebanon and Syria’s territorial waters sure to involve claims from both countries.
In a pre-emptive move, on Christmas Day, Syria announced a deal with Russia to explore 2,190 kilometres (850 Sq. miles) for oil and gas off its Mediterranean coast, to be: “… financed by Russia, and should oil and gas be discovered in commercial quantities, Moscow will recover the exploration costs.”
Syrian Oil Minister, Ali Abbas said during the signing ceremony that the contract covers “25 years, over several phases.”
Syria, increasingly crippled by international sanctions, has seen oil production plummet by ninety percent since the largely Western fermented unrest began in March 2011. Gas production has nearly halved, from thirty million cubic metres a day, to 16.7 cubic metres daily.
The agreement is reported to have resulted from “months of long negotiations” between the two countries. Russia, as one of the Syrian government’s main backers, looks set to also become a major player in the Levant Basin’s energy wealth. (vi)
Lebanon disputes Israel’s map of the Israeli-Lebanese maritime border, filing their own map and claims with the UN in 2010. Israel claims Lebanon is in the process of granting oil and gas exploration licenses in what Israel claims as its “exclusive economic zone.”
That the US in the guise of Vice President Joe Biden, as honest broker, acting peace negotiator in the maritime border dispute would be laughable, were it not potential for Israel to attack their neighbour again. In a visit to Israel in March 2010, Biden announced: “There is absolutely no space between the United States and Israel when it comes to Israel’s security- none at all”, also announcing on arrival in Israel:”It’s good to be home.”
Given US decades of “peace brokering” between Israel and Palestine, this is already a road of pitfalls, one sidedness and duplicity, well traveled. There is trouble ahead.
Oh, and in demonology, Leviathan is one of the seven princes of Hell.
Notes
i. http://www.offshore-technology.com/projects/leviathan-gas-field-levantine-israel/
ii. http://m.theage.com.au/business/options-widen-for-woodsides-leviathan-partners-20131219-2znu6.html
iii. http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-09-04/east-timor-offers-funds-for-onshore- gas-processing/4933106
vi. http://www.phantomreport.com/syria-inks-oil-gas-deal-with-russia-firm#more-20238
The original source of this article is Global Research
Copyright © Felicity Arbuthnot and Prof Michel Chossudovsky, Global Research, 2024
https://www.globalresearch.ca/israel-gas-oil-and-trouble-in-the-levant/5362955
A great wealth transfer is underway: How the West lost control of the gold market
Pricing power in a market long dominated by Western institutional money is moving East and the implications are profound
© Getty Images/brightstars
The gold price has risen to a series of new all-time highs of late, a development that has received only cursory attention in the mainstream financial media. But as is the case with so much else these days, there is much more going on than meets the eye. In fact, the rise in the dollar price of gold is almost the least interesting aspect to this story.
For thousands of years, gold was the ultimate store of value and was synonymous with the concept of ‘money’. Trade was often settled either in gold itself or in bank notes backed by gold and directly exchangeable for it. Currencies backed by nothing but government decree – called ‘fiat’ currencies – have tended to eventually fail.
However, in 1971, gold found itself cast out of this ancient role when the US unilaterally suspended dollar convertibility into gold as enshrined in the Bretton Woods agreement that established the framework for the post-war economy. Shortly thereafter, in an act that medieval alchemists only dreamed of, gold was created out of thin air in the form of futures contracts, meaning bullion could be bought and sold without any metal changing hands – or even existing.
Besides the obvious ramification of all of this – the removal of gold backing to the dollar and thus implicitly to nearly all currencies – there are two important features of how the gold market has subsequently functioned: first, gold has essentially been reduced to trading like any other cyclical financial asset; second, the price of gold has largely been determined by Western institutional investors.
Both of these longstanding trends are now breaking down. As we will see, the importance of this development is hard to overstate. But let’s begin with a very quick examination of how gold went from being the ultimate source of value to just another ticker moving in predictable patterns in the constellation of financial instruments.
How paper replaced metal
The collapse of Bretton Woods in the late ‘60s and early ‘70s – culminating in the gold window being shut in 1971 – was a messy period of transition, uncertainty, and instability. The dollar devalued and a fixed-rate system was negotiated and soon thereafter abandoned. But what was clear was that the US was steering the world away from gold and toward a dollar standard.
Jelle Zijlstra, president of the Dutch central bank, chairman of the Bank of International Settlements from 1967 until 1981, and a prominent figure at the time, recalled in his memoirs how “gold disappeared as the anchor of monetary stability” and that “the road… through endless vicissitudes to a new dollar hegemony was paved with many conferences, with faithful, shrewd, and sometimes misleading stories, with idealistic visions of the future and impressive professorial speeches.” But, he concluded, the ultimate political reality was that the “Americans supported or fought any change, depending on whether they saw the dollar’s position strengthened or threatened.”
Nevertheless, gold was lurking in the shadows like a deposed but still-living monarch and thus represented an implicit guard against the abuse of what had become fiat currencies. If nothing else, as dollars continued to be printed, the price of gold would surge and signal a debasement of the greenback. And this is more or less what happened in the 1970s after the gold window was shuttered. After breaking the $35 per-ounce peg in 1971, gold rocketed all the way up to $850 by 1980.
So the US government had a strong interest in managing the perception of the dollar through gold. Most importantly, it didn’t want to see gold recreate a pseudo reserve currency by strengthening substantially. Legendary Fed chairman Paul Volcker once said “gold is my enemy.” And indeed it traditionally had been the enemy of central banks: it forced them to tighten rates when they didn’t want to and imposed on them a certain discipline.
This framework helps make sense of the rise of the unallocated – i.e. ‘paper’ – gold market in the 1980s and the countless gold derivatives that emerged. This actually started in 1974 with the launch of gold futures trading but exploded in the next decade. What happened is that bullion banks began selling paper claims on gold for which there was no actual gold attached. And buyers were not actually required to pay upfront but could simply leave a cash margin.
READ MORE: Russia jumps to sixth place in terms of forex holdings – World Gold Council
The setup is reminiscent of the old communist joke that went “we pretend to work and you pretend to pay us.” In this case, the investor pretends to pay for the gold and the seller pretends to own it. This is about as close as you can get to pure speculation.
Thus was born the fractional-reserve paper gold scheme that persists to this day. And indeed, there is now vastly more paper gold than physical, some $200-300 trillion compared to $11 trillion, according an estimate by Forbes magazine. Others put the discrepancy even higher. Nobody really knows. Comex, the primary futures and options market for gold, has also become more paper-driven. According to analyst Luke Gromen, whereas 25 years ago some 20% of the gold volume on Comex was related to a physical ounce, that number has fallen to around 2%.
Gold as just another cyclical asset
What is important to understand here is that the creation of a derivative market satisfies demand for gold that would otherwise go to the physical market. Only a limited amount of gold exists and can be mined but an unlimited amount of gold derivatives can be underwritten. As Gromen explains, when monetary expansion drives demand for gold (due to the inflation this brings), there are two ways this demand can be dealt with: let the price of gold rise as more dollars chase the same amount of gold; or permit more paper claims to be created on the same amount of gold, which allows the pace of gold’s rise to be managed.
There are several important implications of this. The rise of the paper market has clearly played an important role in defanging gold in its role as exerting a hard limit on expansionary policy, thus implicitly reinforcing the credibility of the dollar. But it has also meant that the gold price has largely been determined by investment flows rather than physical demand. And when we’re talking about investment flows, we mean first and foremost Western institutional investors.
Given that gold trades essentially as a cyclical asset, institutional investors have primarily traded gold based on movements in real US interest rates – meaning interest rates adjusted for inflation. Gold is bought when real rates fall and vice versa. The logic is that when interest rates rise, money managers can earn more by switching to bonds or cash, thus increasing the opportunity cost of holding non-interest-bearing assets such as gold. By the same token, lower rates make gold – seen as a hedge against inflation – more attractive. This correlation has been particularly strong over the last 15 years or so and many analysts date it back further than that.
So let’s go a step further and pose the following question: If Western institutional money has been driving the price, who has been on the other side of the trade when actual gold does change hands?
To oversimplify a bit, the model worked roughly as follows, as has been explained by gold analyst Jan Nieuwenhuijs: Western institutions essentially controlled the price of gold and bought from the East in bull markets and sold to the East in bear markets. This makes sense, because the Western side of this trade essentially consisted of investors who in any asset class tend to chase the price higher. The East, meanwhile, was characterized more by consumer demand. Because consumers are price-sensitive, they tend to buy when the price is low and are happy to sell into a rising market.
So gold flowed from East to West in bull markets and from West to East in bear markets. But, as we mentioned above, it was the Western institutional investors who were in the driver’s seat in this trade.
This was the well-established state of affairs up until 2022, which happens to be when the Ukraine proxy war began and the US took the bold step of freezing some $300 billion in Russian central bank assets.
The end of a longstanding correlation
A coincidence or not, what happened that year was that the correlation between US real rates and gold broke down and has not been restored. The first sign of an impending shift was that, in first few months after the Fed embarked on a sharp rate-hike cycle in March 2022, gold did drop but proved much more resilient to the rising rates than correlation models would have suggested. But the real breakdown in the correlation started around September of that year, when gold prices actually started climbing even as real rates remained flat. In fact, from late October 2022 through June 2023, the gold price rose 17%.
Meanwhile, over 2023, US real yields rose (despite quite a bit of volatility), which, according to the old correlation, should have meant a decline in gold prices as higher yields elsewhere would make non-yielding gold less attractive. However, gold rose 15% for the year.
READ MORE: Gold demand soaring in China – report
Another notable aspect of this is that Western institutional investors have been net sellers of gold, as evidenced by declining inventory held by Western exchange-traded funds (ETFs) and falling open interest on Comex during the October 2022-June 2023 period mentioned above (when the correlation broke down). In 2023, gold ETFs posted net outflows for the year despite the rising gold price. Meanwhile, so far this year through February, the ETF outflow figure amounted to $5.7 billion, $4.7 billion of which came from North America – all while gold prices have surged to all-time highs.
So coming into focus is a picture of Western institutional investors responding like Pavlov’s dogs to rising interest rates and ditching gold in favor of higher yielding assets such as bonds, stocks, money market funds – you name it. And normally, like clockwork, this would have driven the price down.
But it didn’t. And the two main reasons are the voracious appetite for physical gold on display from central banks and extremely strong private-sector demand for physical gold from China. It is difficult to know exactly which central banks are buying and how much they’re buying because these purchases take place in the opaque over-the-counter market. Central banks report their gold purchases to the IMF, but, as the Financial Times has pointed out, global flows of the metal suggest that the real level of buying by official financial institutions – especially in China and Russia – has far exceeded what has been reported.
According to the World Gold Council, which attempts to track these covert purchases, central banks bought an all-time record 1,082 tonnes in 2022 and nearly matched that figure the following year. By far the largest buyer has been the People’s Bank of China, which as of this past February had added to its reserves for 16 straight months.
Nieuwenhuijs estimates that the People’s Bank of China bought a record 735 tonnes of gold in 2023, about two-thirds of which were purchased covertly. Meanwhile, according to his figures, Chinese private sector net imports totaled 1,411 tonnes in 2023 and a whopping 228 tonnes just in January of 2024.
READ MORE: Abuse only gets worse with time: How the US increasingly mistreats its closest allies
Where does this all lead?
Let’s now zoom out a little bit and try to put this into some kind of perspective. The first obvious point here is that gold pricing is increasingly being determined by demand for physical gold rather than mere speculation. Let’s be clear: the People’s Bank of China is not loading up on 25:1 leveraged gold futures contracts with cash settlement. Neither is Russia. They’re backing trucks laden with the real thing into the vaults. And in fact we have seen net exports from wholesale markets in London and Switzerland – i.e. representing Western institutional gold. That gold has been moving East.
Nieuwenhuijs argues that the covert gold purchases represent a sort of “hidden dedollarization.” This is being carried out not only because the weaponization of the dollar has introduced a hitherto unimaginable threat to dollar reserves, but also because of the burgeoning US debt crisis, which is looking more and more like a spiral. What is starting to appear as the inevitable endgame of the US debt saga is a lowering of interest rates in order to reduce the cost of funding the government, because the current interest expense is unsustainable. Lowering interest rates and letting inflation surge probably represents the best of a selection of bad options facing US policymakers.
This will, of course, further debase the dollar. For those holding significant amounts of dollar assets, such as China, this is a grim outlook, and it goes a long way toward understanding the current gold-buying spree.
Another aspect to this is that as BRICS countries increasingly trade in local currencies, a neutral reserve asset is needed to settle trade imbalances. In lieu of a BRICS currency, which may or not be forthcoming in the near future, Luke Gromen believes this role is already starting to be performed by physical gold. If this is the case, it marks the return of gold to a place of prominence in the financial system, both as a store of value and a means of settlement. This, too, represents a hugely important step.
READ MORE: China hints at its asymmetric warfare system aimed at dethroning US dollar
As these momentous tectonic shifts take shape, the gold selling by Western investors over the past two years has something of a feel of throwing one’s lot in with the Habsburgs around 1913. The denizens of Wall Street have been slow to understand that the wheel has turned. Mainstream Western analysts have repeatedly expressed surprise that the relentless pace of central-bank purchases has not abated.
There are instances in history when events overtake those living through them and when change is so profound that most observers lack the mental categories to perceive it. In 1936, Carl Jung said: “A hurricane has broken loose in Germany while we still believe it is fine weather.”
The hurricane that is bearing down upon the Western world is the debasement of the dollar owing to the weaponization of the financial system and the spiraling US debt crisis. These are epochal developments that have combined to break the familiar financial world beyond repair. The flow of gold from West to East is both a real transfer of wealth, but it is also symbolic of just how profoundly the West has been underestimating the significance of what is happening.
By Henry Johnston, an RT editor. He worked for over a decade in finance and is a FINRA Series 7 and Series 24 license holder.
In den Vereinigten Staaten führten sie ohne öffentliche Vorwarnung ein Geoengineering-Experiment durch, indem sie Salzkristalle in die Atmosphäre sprühten.
Der erste offene Test zur Begrenzung der globalen Erwärmung durch zunehmende Wolkendecke wurde am Dienstag vom Deck eines stillgelegten Flugzeugträgers in der Bucht von San Francisco aus durchgeführt.
Das Experiment, das die Organisatoren nicht öffentlich ankündigten, um öffentliche Gegenreaktionen zu vermeiden, markiert eine Beschleunigung der Entwicklung eines umstrittenen Forschungsgebiets, das als Modifikation der Sonnenstrahlung oder Geoengineering bekannt ist. Das Konzept besteht darin, aerosolartige Substanzen in den Himmel zu sprühen, um das Sonnenlicht von der Erde zu reflektieren, berichtet Scientific American .
Das von Forschern der University of Washington geleitete Projekt hat erneut die Frage aufgeworfen, wie Klimatechnologien, die unerwarteten Schaden für Bevölkerungsgruppen und Ökosysteme verursachen könnten, effektiv und ethisch untersucht werden können. Während des Experiments werden mikroskopisch kleine Salzpartikel in die Luft gesprüht.
„Da dieses Experiment bis zum Beginn der Tests geheim gehalten wurde, können wir es kaum erwarten zu sehen, wie die Öffentlichkeit beteiligt werden soll und wer beteiligt sein wird“, sagt Shuchi Talati, Geschäftsführer der Alliance for Fair Discussion on Solar Geoengineering, a gemeinnützige Organisation, die sich zum Ziel gesetzt hat, Entwicklungsländer bei der Lösung des Problems der Solarenergieumstellung zu engagieren.
„Obwohl das Projekt alle bestehenden regulatorischen Anforderungen erfüllt, besteht eindeutig die Notwendigkeit, zu überdenken, wie ein robuster regulatorischer Rahmen in einer Welt aussehen sollte, in der Experimente zur Veränderung der Sonnenstrahlung durchgeführt werden“, fügte sie hinzu.
Das Projekt Coastal Atmospheric Aerosol Research and Engagement (CAARE) verwendet speziell entwickelte Sprühgeräte, um Billionen von Meersalzpartikeln in den Himmel zu schießen, um die Dichte und das Reflexionsvermögen von Meereswolken zu erhöhen. Das Experiment wird in Alameda, Kalifornien, stattfinden und bis Ende Mai dauern, wie aus einem Formular hervorgeht, das das Team bei den Bundesaufsichtsbehörden eingereicht hat.
Das Projekt zeigt ein wachsendes Interesse an Solarmodifikationen bei Finanziers aus dem Silicon Valley und einigen Umweltgruppen . Es folgt auch auf die Absage eines weiteren Experiments der Harvard-Universität im letzten Monat , bei dem reflektierende Aerosole in die Stratosphäre in der Nähe von Schweden injiziert werden sollten, das jedoch aufgrund des Widerstands lokaler Gruppen abgesagt wurde.
Die Veränderung der Sonneneinstrahlung ist umstritten, da der weit verbreitete Einsatz von Technologien wie der Aufhellung von Meereswolken das Wetterverhalten auf unbekannte Weise verändern und möglicherweise die Produktivität von Fischereien und landwirtschaftlichen Betrieben einschränken kann.
Die University of Washington und SilverLining, eine Interessenvertretung für Geoengineering, die am CAARE-Projekt beteiligt ist, lehnten eine Stellungnahme ab, ebenso wie der Bürgermeister von Alameda, wo das Experiment durchgeführt wird.
Verwendete Quellen:
Des missiles ont frappé une base américaine dans l’est de la Syrie
- Soutenez Réseau InternationalNous avons besoin de vous
par PressTV
Sur fond d’un sentiment anti-américain croissant face au soutien de Washington à l’offensive israélienne contre Gaza, une base militaire américaine située dans la province orientale de Deir ez-Zor, en Syrie, a été la cible d’une frappe de missiles.
Le service arabe de l’agence de presse russe Sputnik, citant des sources locales s’exprimant sous couvert d’anonymat, a rapporté que des explosions de forte intensité ont été entendues ce samedi après-midi 6 avril lorsque plusieurs projectiles ont frappé une installation gérée par les forces d’occupation américaines sur le champ gazier de Conoco.
Des colonnes de fumée s’élevaient de l’intérieur de la base, alors que les responsables militaires américains déclaraient l’état d’urgence et déployaient davantage de forces.
Aucun rapport n’a été publié dans l’immédiat sur l’étendue des dégâts survenus dans l’installation militaire ni sur les victimes possibles.
La Résistance islamique en Irak, un groupe de combattants antiterroristes, a revendiqué la plupart des frappes de représailles contre les bases militaires américaines en Irak et en Syrie.
Les États-Unis, le plus grand allié d’Israël, ont fourni au régime occupant une grande quantité d’armes et de munitions depuis le début de la guerre à Gaza.
Washington a également opposé son veto aux résolutions du Conseil de sécurité de l’ONU appelant le régime à cesser son agression.
Israël a lancé la guerre contre Gaza le 7 octobre après que les groupes de résistance palestiniens, le Hamas et le Jihad islamique, basés dans la bande de Gaza ont mené l’opération surprise Tempête d’Al-Aqsa dans les territoires occupés en réponse aux crimes intensifiés du régime occupant contre le peuple palestinien.
Selon le ministère de la Santé basé à Gaza, au moins 33 137 Palestiniens ont été tués en martyr pour la plupart des femmes et des enfants et plus de 75 815 autres blessés.
source : Press TV
Joe Biden tend la main à Xi Jinping en vue de la stabilité financière
- Soutenez Réseau InternationalNous avons besoin de vous
par M.K. Bhadrakumar
L’appel téléphonique entre le président américain Joe Biden et le président chinois Xi Jinping, mardi, a été marqué par leur consensus sur le fait que, depuis leur sommet de Woodside, en Californie, en novembre 2023, les relations entre les États-Unis et la Chine «commencent à se stabiliser».
Les deux parties ont convenu que leur discussion avait été«franche et constructive». Les analystes chinois estiment qu’il existe une volonté commune à Pékin et à Washington «d’empêcher les facteurs négatifs d’influencer la stabilité générale des relations bilatérales».
Xi a proposé trois «principes primordiaux» pour naviguer en 2024 : «la paix doit être valorisée», «la stabilité doit être privilégiée» et les engagements doivent être suivis d’actions.
D’une manière générale, l’appel téléphonique peut être considéré comme positif. Xi et Biden ont tous deux exprimé le souhait de stabiliser les relations bilatérales, de gérer les différences et de développer la coopération, et ont convenu qu’une relation stable et prévisible entre la Chine et les États-Unis était dans leur intérêt.
Washington a annoncé après l’appel téléphonique que la secrétaire au Trésor, Janet Yellen, se rendrait en Chine pour une visite prolongée du 3 au 9 avril. Le département du Trésor américain a déclaré qu’elle «s’appuiera sur la diplomatie intensive qu’elle a entreprise pour gérer de manière responsable les relations économiques bilatérales et promouvoir les intérêts américains».
Auparavant, lors d’une conférence de presse à la Maison-Blanche, un haut fonctionnaire avait souligné que l’administration Biden n’avait pas modifié son approche de la Chine, «qui reste centrée sur le cadre d’investissement, d’alignement et de concurrence. Une concurrence intense exige une diplomatie intense pour gérer les tensions, répondre aux perceptions erronées et prévenir les conflits involontaires. Cet appel est un moyen d’y parvenir».
Cela dit, elle a également énuméré des domaines de coopération dans des domaines importants «où nos intérêts sont alignés» : la lutte contre les stupéfiants, l’intelligence artificielle, les canaux de communication entre militaires et les questions climatiques. Elle a prévu que «selon ce qui se passera au cours de l’année à venir, il y aura – nous l’espérons – une possibilité d’organiser une autre réunion (au sommet) en personne, mais nous n’avons même pas d’éléments pour spéculer sur la date de cette réunion. Mais il est certain que cette réunion en personne et les appels téléphoniques entre-temps ont de la valeur».
La visite de six jours de Mme Yellen sera suivie d’un voyage à Pékin du secrétaire d’État Antony Blinken «dans les semaines à venir». Un appel entre les ministres de la défense est également attendu «prochainement». En effet, une montée en puissance régulière est en cours.
C’est Biden qui a pris l’initiative de l’appel. On peut imaginer que Washington, confronté à de multiples problèmes à l’intérieur et à l’extérieur de ses frontières, a davantage besoin de la Chine que l’inverse. Englués dans les conflits de Gaza et d’Ukraine, ils peuvent difficilement se permettre une confrontation dans le détroit de Taïwan. Là encore, les États-Unis ont besoin de la coopération de la Chine dans des domaines importants tels que la lutte contre le fentanyl, le changement climatique, l’intelligence artificielle, la transition vers l’énergie verte, etc. et, surtout, la stabilité financière.
La stabilité financière est une question centrale. L’itinéraire de Mme Yellen s’articule autour de ses entretiens prolongés avec le vice-premier ministre He Lifeng, qui s’étalent sur deux jours. He Lifeng a été nommé en novembre dernier à la tête de la Commission financière centrale et est devenu le chef de l’équipe financière et économique du parti communiste chinois.
Mme Yellen doit rencontrer le ministre des Finances Lan Fo’an, le premier ministre Li Qiang, le maire de Pékin Yin Yong, le gouverneur de la Banque populaire de Chine Pan Gongsheng et d’éminents économistes chinois. Il est clair que Mme Yellen mettra l’accent sur la stabilité financière, qui est un élément essentiel des relations entre les États-Unis et la Chine.
La politique monétaire américaine se trouve à un point d’inflexion. Les risques financiers ont augmenté et l’incertitude s’accroît sur le marché mondial. L’anxiété partagée par les investisseurs est évidente dans l’augmentation de l’attrait de l’or en tant qu’actif refuge.
Le système financier mondial est secoué par de multiples facteurs, tels que des niveaux d’endettement insoutenables, des affrontements géopolitiques et une nouvelle ère de faible croissance, d’investissements mondiaux réduits et de démondialisation. Mais un facteur majeur affectant la résilience du système financier mondial est la spéculation actuelle concernant une réduction des taux d’intérêt américains, qui aurait un effet d’entraînement sur l’économie mondiale.
Historiquement, l’assouplissement monétaire américain a été le signe avant-coureur des crises financières mondiales. En tant que première et deuxième économies mondiales, les États-Unis et la Chine seront dans le cockpit pour naviguer dans toute crise financière mondiale, dont la ruée sur l’or en tant qu’actif refuge par les investisseurs est un signal d’alarme précoce.
La hausse des prix de l’or reflète autant une panique face aux risques entourant le système financier mondial qu’un manque de confiance dans les actifs libellés en dollars américains. Le fait est que la politique monétaire irresponsable des États-Unis a fortement affecté la demande internationale de dollars et d’actifs libellés en dollars.
L’énormité de la crise de l’économie américaine ne peut être dissimulée plus longtemps. La dette nationale américaine, estimée aujourd’hui à 34 000 milliards de dollars, est presque égale à la valeur combinée des économies de la Chine, de l’Allemagne, du Japon, de l’Inde et du Royaume-Uni.
La Chine entre en scène. La politique monétaire constante de la Chine a créé une marge de manœuvre et des outils en réserve permettant à Pékin de faire face à tout nouveau défi à venir dans le système financier mondial, tandis que son marché des changes est devenu plus résilient.
Ainsi, alors qu’une baisse des taux par la Fed fait craindre une poursuite des sorties de capitaux des États-Unis (car des taux d’intérêt plus bas signifient un taux de rendement plus faible sur les investissements dans les actifs libellés en dollars américains), il est fort probable qu’elle fasse de la Chine la destination préférée des entrées de capitaux internationaux.
Contrairement au battage médiatique occidental selon lequel la Chine perd de son attrait pour les investisseurs étrangers, les grandes entreprises américaines ont commencé à affluer en Chine le mois dernier, s’engageant sur le marché chinois, annonçant de nouveaux accords d’investissement et installant de nouveaux magasins ou usines.
La Chine peut devenir un refuge sûr pour les capitaux internationaux. Son économie est en pleine croissance et, compte tenu des outils dont elle dispose pour garantir la stabilité financière, le marché des changes chinois devrait maintenir une performance relativement stable à un moment où l’incertitude sur le marché financier mondial ne cesse de croître.
Pourquoi est-ce si important ? Le cœur du problème est qu’avec la montée en flèche du prix de l’or, le début d’un cycle de réduction des taux et l’aggravation des risques financiers, la Chine dispose de plus d’options dans la gestion de ses portefeuilles d’actifs, ce qui pourrait avoir une incidence sur les obligations du Trésor américain détenues par Pékin.
L’énorme programme de relance de Pékin a aidé l’Occident à se remettre de la crise financière de 2008. Alors que le reste du monde est au bord de la récession, les décideurs politiques occidentaux ne veulent surtout pas perturber la Chine, qui est le principal moteur de la croissance économique mondiale. Ils espèrent que la Chine contribuera à compenser le ralentissement attendu dans d’autres parties du monde.
Mais des questions géopolitiques entrent en jeu. La question de Taïwan et les liens amicaux entre Pékin et Moscou figurent en tête de liste des points litigieux. Biden a fait part à Xi de ses préoccupations concernant le «soutien de la Chine à la base industrielle de défense de la Russie et son impact sur la sécurité européenne et transatlantique».
Le porte-parole du ministère chinois des affaires étrangères, Wang Wenbin, s’est empressé de répondre que «les autres pays ne devraient pas salir et attaquer les relations normales entre la Chine et la Russie, ne devraient pas porter atteinte aux droits légitimes de la Chine et des entreprises chinoises, et ne devraient pas rejeter la faute sur la Chine sans raison et provoquer une confrontation entre les camps».
Pékin n’a pas oublié que l’administration Obama a montré sa «gratitude» quelques années après la crise financière de 2008 en dévoilant la stratégie du «pivot vers l’Asie» pour couper les ailes de la Chine et contenir sa montée en puissance – un état d’esprit qui définit toujours la trajectoire de l’administration Biden.
Xi a averti Biden que «la Chine n’allait pas rester les bras croisés» face aux encouragements et au soutien extérieurs à l’indépendance de Taïwan. Il a ajouté que la Chine n’allait pas non plus «rester les bras croisés» si les États-Unis restaient «déterminés à contenir le développement de la Chine dans le domaine de la haute technologie et à priver la Chine de son droit légitime au développement».
Biden a répondu qu’il «était dans l’intérêt du monde entier que la Chine réussisse».
source : Indian Punchline via Le Saker Francophone
Alastair Crooke : The Art of War: Different Thinking Systems
By Alastair Crooke*
Just as the West failed to understand Russia, and was taken by surprise, so it is that the White House firmly ignores the Biblical ‘End of Times’ dimension to the Israeli ‘way of thinking about war’.
Jacques Baud, a Swiss military officer with a long history of studying ‘Ways of Thinking’ about War (from Warsaw Pact to NATO — to which he was seconded by his government), has written a new book — The Russian Art of War: How the West Led Ukraine to Defeat. His book theme is essentially: Others understand the West, better than the West understands ‘Them’.
Baud writes that the fundamental reason for the West having the ‘blinkers on’ is “the result of an approach we have already seen in waves of terrorist attacks — the adversary is so stupidly demonized that we refrain from understanding his way of thinking. As a result, we are unable to develop strategies, articulate our forces, or even equip them for the realities of war”.
“In the West, we tend to focus on [the immediate] moment and try to see how it might evolve. We want an immediate response to the situation we see – today. The idea that “from the understanding of how the crisis arose comes the way to resolve it” is totally foreign to the West. In September 2023, an English-speaking journalist even pulled out the “duck test” for me: “if it looks like a duck, swims like a duck and quacks like a duck, it’s probably a duck.” In other words, all the West needs to assess a situation is an image that fits their prejudices. Reality is much more subtle than the duck model …”.
“The reason the Russians are better than the West in Ukraine is that they see the conflict as an [organic] process; whereas we see it as a series of separate discrete actions. The Russians see events as a film. We see them as photographs. They see the forest, while we focus on the trees. That is why we place the start of the Ukraine conflict on February 24, 2022 – or the start of the Palestinian conflict on October 7, 2023. We ignore the contexts that bother us and wage conflicts we do not understand. That is why we lose our wars …”.
Baud, in his book, gives an excellent account of the military evolution derived from this western ‘thinking system’. Nonetheless, the explanation is somehow incomplete. Yes, the ‘Others’ do have an ‘organic’ and ‘process’-linked understanding of crises, yet there is more to it than that.
The French philosopher, Emmanuel Todd, in La Défaite, suggests that — with a US in constant revolt against its own past – the West has fallen to nihilism and to “a breath-taking dogmatism across the spectrum of Western élites – a kind of ideological solipsism preventing them from seeing the world – as it actually is”.
I recall having once asked former Secretary Madeline Albright why she forbade Yasser Arafat from consulting various Islamic authorities on the radical US proposal to divide the sovereignty under Al-Aqsa Mosque horizontally, so that the topsoil sovereignty would stay with the Islamic Waqf, but the ‘beneath’ would be Israel’s sovereignty. She said firmly that it was a matter of principle at the US State Department to ignore all religious dimensions – and to remain secular.
There are other examples: Dick Cheney insisted that all that was needed in geo-politics was to understand ‘the underlying nature of people’ (as viewed from the Western perspective). Facts and history did not matter. As Baud has noted, an image that fits with prejudice is what matters.
The consequence is not confined to that of failing to see the world ‘as it actually is’, but represents an ideological teleology of refusing to see it ‘as it is’.
Baud writes at length why the West has been systematically surprised by Russia in Ukraine, and observes how this deep-seated prejudice gives Russia the advantage of surprise — to the point “where the Western narrative led Ukraine to totally underestimate Russian capabilities, which was a major factor in its defeat”.
The key point is that Baud’s insights apply not only to the implementation of military action, as such. They are also applicable as a ‘thinking system’ to mis-construing geo-politics, too.
Just as the West failed to understand Russia, and was taken by surprise, so it is that the White House firmly ignores the Biblical ‘End of Times’ dimension to the Israeli ‘way of thinking about war’, preferring to stick with its ‘liberal-secular’ image of “Israel”.
So too, the West refuses to understand the Palestinian and Resistance opposition to Zionism, and as Baud observes, “it is an approach we have already seen in waves of terrorist attacks – the adversary is so stupidly demonized that we refrain from understanding his way of thinking”.
The West thus slips back into old default colonial tactical responses to what they observe (i.e. towards the Iraq’s Hash’d A-Shaabi, or Ansarallah in Yemen), viewing them merely as ‘rebel’ or ‘mutinous’ disconnected eruptions, to be put down with a firm smack of firepower — i.e. as discontinuous, tactical events.
There is then, no real enquiry into the reasons for these irritating neo-colonial irruptions, nor any interest in whether there is history to them.
Jacques Baud concludes: As a result of this approach, our frustrations are translated by unscrupulous media into narratives that both feed hatred and increase the sense of vulnerability.
*Alastair Crooke Director of Conflicts Forum; Former Senior British Diplomat; Author.
Source: https://english.almayadeen.net/articles/analysis/the-russian-smo–2—why-was-it-a-global-turning-point
Der Friedensstifter 