Russia & China could set international gold price based on physical gold trading
RT | December 3, 2017
Since Russia, China, India, Brazil & South Africa are all either large producers or consumers of gold, or both, it is highly likely that the BRICS bloc they constitute could focus its cross-border gold trading network on trading physical gold.
Gold pricing benchmarks from such a system would be based on physical gold transactions, which is a departure from the way the international gold price is currently established.
Such a system would also be a threat to “gold” trading markets in London and New York. The London Over-the-Counter (OTC) and the New York COMEX futures exchange currently set the international gold price.
OTC and COMEX are really trading synthetic derivatives on gold, and are completely detached from the physical gold market. In London, the derivative is fractionally-backed unallocated gold positions which are predominantly cash-settled. In New York the derivative is exchange-traded gold future contracts which are predominantly cash-settled and backed by very little real gold.
The major gold producers Russia, China and other BRICS nations could change the way the international gold prices are set currently – in a synthetic trading environment which has very little to do with the physical gold market.
BRICS cooperation in the gold market was first unveiled in April by the First Deputy Chairman of Russia’s Central Bank, Sergey Shevtsov, during a visit to China.
“We (the Central Bank of the Russian Federation and the People’s Bank of China) discussed gold trading,” he said. “The BRICS countries (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) are major economies with large reserves of gold and an impressive volume of production and consumption of the precious metal. In China, gold is traded in Shanghai, and in Russia in Moscow. Our idea is to create a link between these cities so as to intensify gold trading between our markets.”
Even Russian Dissidents Say Americans Have Gone Crazy Over Putin
By Glen Ford | Black Agenda Report | November 30, 2017
The New York Times last week opened its pages to critics of the U.S. corporate media’s obsession with Vladimir Putin’s endlessly alleged, but never proven, campaign to subvert “American democracy.” After a year of unrelenting anti-Kremlin propaganda, the Times briefly lifted its curtain of censorship to allow a counter-narrative on “Russiagate” – but only for one discreet group: Russian “dissidents.” (See “Why Putin’s Foes Deplore U.S. Fixation on Election Meddling,” November 23.)
These “pro-Western liberals who look to the United States as an exemplar of democratic values and journalistic excellence,” as the Times describes them, are dismayed, insulted and angry at the non-stop lunacy churned out by U.S. media. If the Times, the Washington Post, CNN and most of the Democratic Party are to be believed, President Putin is a superman, “an almighty force from a James Bond saga,” said Leonid M. Volkov, chief of staff for anti-Putin politician Aleksei A. Navalny . How could the Russian opposition ever hope to overcome such a titan — a man who can wreck the political order in the world’s reigning superpower with the expenditure of only $100,000 on Facebook? “This image is very bad for us,” Volkov told the Times. “Putin is not a master geopolitical genius.”
Putin has been made to look “invincible,” said Michael Idov, a Russian-American screenwriter (the closest the Times got to giving a fellow American the opportunity to challenge the corporate Russiagate obsession).
The New York Times has cultivated a cabal of pro-western Russian politicians ever since Bill Clinton’s presidency, when U.S. bankers helped to create the Russian oligarchy with assets stolen from the wreckage of the Soviet state. Vladimir Putin is credited with taming the oligarchs, who nevertheless remain embedded in the nation’s infrastructure. The politicians the Times calls “dissidents” hate Putin, but they are also proud to be Russian, and cannot abide U.S. scape-goating of their nation. The Americans sound crazy. “What is happening with ‘the investigation into Russian interference,’ is not just a disgrace but a collective eclipse of the mind,” said Volko.
It is obvious to every politically aware Russian that Donald Trump and his team of incompetents met with hardly any Russians of consequence on his trips to that country — mostly wannabes and hustlers. But, U.S. audiences can’t distinguish one Russian from the other, and know only one Russian face: Putin’s.
Journalist Oleg V. Kashin, a Kremlin critic, said: “The image of Putin’s Russia constructed by Western and, above all, American media outlets over the past 18 months shocks even the most anti-Putin reader in Russia.” Times correspondent Higgins reports that Kashin “complained that the American media has consistently misconstrued the way Russia works, presenting marginal opportunists and self-interested businessmen with no real link to the Kremlin as state-controlled agents working on orders from Mr. Putin.”
The New York Times and the Washington Post know their way around Moscow — and if they don’t, the CIA will give them directions. Indeed, their friends, the Russian “dissidents,” would have been glad to advise the U.S. media on Russiagate, but that would have made a boring story about small time sleaze in a cold climate. What the U.S. War Party needed was a new cold war to accompany Washington’s global military offensive.
U.S. “liberals” and “progressives” hate Trump more than they value peace, and are not nearly as smart as they think they are. Professor of history Ivan I. Kurilla, who specializes in American studies at the European University in St. Petersburg, said anti-Trump Americans want to foist him on Russia — politically exiling the Orange Menace to somebody else’s country. “American liberals are so upset about Trump that they cannot believe he is a real product of American life,” said Kurilla. “They try to portray him as something created by Russia. This whole thing is about America, not Russia.”
The Times’ Russian dissident friends despise RT, the state-supported Russia news agency, but are worried about Washington’s demand that RT register as a foreign agent. Until only a few years ago, U.S. NGOs were hyper-active in Russia, spending millions to create and subsidize opposition to Putin’s United Russia party, hoping to foment a “color” revolution. Western-oriented political actors in Russia fear that Russiagate will provoke a Kremlin crackdown on activists that are too closely identified with the U.S. The truth is, the “dissidents” interviewed by the New York Times are dependent on western corporate media for legitimacy and visibility. The real opposition in Russia is the Communist Party, which is the second largest party in the country but gets almost no coverage in the U.S. press, while the western-allied opposition hardly shows up in the polls.
Thus, even the nature of “dissent” in Russia is grossly distorted by the U.S media, which commits a similar crime against truth on its home turf. The New York Times went all the way to Moscow and St. Petersburg to solicit critiques of Russiagate coverage (“propaganda” is a better term), but rigidly censors American skeptics.
In so doing, they create a bubble of fear and ignorance that envelops the country — while everything inside, shrinks.
Glen Ford can be contacted at Glen.Ford@BlackAgendaReport.com
Turkey’s Erdogan won’t capitulate
By M K Bhadrakumar | Indian Punchline | December 2, 2017
As the countdown begins for the trial in a Manhattan federal court next week of the Turkish-Iranian millionaire gold trader Reza Zarrab over violations of US sanctions against Iran, Turkey is hardening its stance. President Recep Erdogan has said that Turkey cannot be prosecuted in a fake court. (See my article in Asia Times, Gold dealer’s testimony puts Erdogan on shaky ground.)
Importantly, on Friday, the Istanbul Chief Prosecutor’s Office issued an arrest warrant for a former top CIA official Graham Fuller alleging his involvement in the failed coup attempt in Turkey in July last year. The Turkish security is apparently in possession of information that Fuller was in the country during the coup attempt on July 15 and abruptly left after the coup failed. Fuller participated in a secret meeting of the coup plotters on July 15-16, which was held in the Buyukada Island in the Sea of Marmara off Istanbul.
For the first time, Ankara is inches away from hinting that last year’s was a CIA-sponsored coup attempt, aimed at overthrowing Erdogan’s government. The government has alleged previously that the coup plotters intended to “eliminate” Erdogan.
This is an extremely serious development insofar as Turkey is, in effect, alleging that the spy agency of a major NATO ally, which swears by Article 5 of the alliance’s charter on collective security, actually conspired to overthrow its established government which enjoyed a democratic mandate.
From all indications, Turkish intelligence would have collected a lot of evidence regarding the coup before making the move to seek Fuller’s arrest. At least some of the evidence would also have been provided by friendly countries such as Russia and Iran. We will never know whether the Russian and Iranian intelligence are in possession of hard information pointing at CIA involvement in the coup attempt in Turkey, but the possibility cannot be ruled out. The Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammed Zarif was constantly interacting telephonically with his Turkish counterpart through the fateful night of the coup attempt when things were on razor’s edge.
Ankara announced on Friday that Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu will be attending the NATO Foreign Ministers’ meeting in Brussels on December 5-6. Cavusoglu is sure to bump into US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson. One can only wish to be a fly on the wall at the NATO Hqs. Indeed, if the US plan is to leverage the Zarrab case to pressure Turkey to change course in its foreign policies and revert to its cold-war era role as the West’s junior partner in the region, it may boomarang. Turkey may be preparing to go on the offensive.
Make no mistake, Turkey will follow up on the arrest warrant for Fuller. Fuller was a mentor of the controversial Islamist preacher Fetullah Gulen. According to Turkish reports, Fuller had recommended Gulen’s application for the Green Card, which in turn enabled the latter to live in exile in the US for almost two decades after he fled Turkey in 1998. Turkish intelligence keeps a close tab on Gulen’s activities Ankara has often hinted that Gulen is actively in contact with the US establishment.
If Erdogan wants to hit the Americans hard, he won’t have to look beyond next-door Syria. Erdogan’s key advisor Ibrahim Kalin has written in the pro-government Sabah newspaper today that with the defeat of ISIS, the US has no justification to support the Syrian Kurds. To quote Kalin,
- This question was discussed during a recent phone call between President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and U.S. President Donald Trump on Nov. 24. Trump’s response was affirmative, adding that the huge military support the U.S. is providing to the YPG should have ended before. His statement was contradicted only a few days later by the Pentagon.
There is an implicit warning here that Turkey is drawing a red line. Kalin disclosed in the article that Pentagon is using the pictures of Kurdish women fighters to “romanticize” the US-Kurdish alliance. Kalin wrote, “[It is] a useful instrument to sell propaganda to Western audiences, but an affront to the female body and personality. Among the many ironies of this policy, this one is stunning: America’s best ally in Syria is a Marxist-Leninist terrorist organization that fights against Turkey, a key U.S. ally, and seeks autonomy and eventual independence in Syria.”
The Turkish intelligence has got through to the chief spokesman of the US-backed Kuridsh alliance (known as the Syrian Democratic Front) Talal Silo who has “defected” to Turkey recently. In an interview with the Anadolu news agency today, Silo has spilt the beans, exposing the Pentagon’s nefarious activities in Syria that threaten Turkish national security interests. The transcript of the interview is here.
Hamas asks PA government to fulfill its duties or resign
Palestine Information Center – December 2, 2107
GAZA – Islamic Resistance Movement, Hamas, on Saturday urged the Palestinian Authority (PA) government to fully assume its responsibilities, including lifting the unjust sanctions on the Gazan people, or resign and form a national salvation government.
The Movement said in a press statement that the PA government, led by Rami Hamdallah, was handed over all Gaza ministries yet it has not exerted any single effort to alleviate the suffering of the Palestinians people in Gaza and miserably failed in implementing the agreements reached in Cairo.
Hamas accused the PA government of fighting against the resistance and stressed that it has not made any serious step to confront the Israeli Judaization and settlement schemes and defend the Palestinian people in Occupied Jerusalem and the West Bank.
This is the first time that Hamas has openly asked Hamdallah’s government to resign. The request came in response to the government’s procrastination in lifting the sanctions imposed on the Gaza Strip despite having taken over all government institutions in the enclave under Egyptian and international supervision.
PA officials demand that the PA government be fully “empowered” as a condition for lifting sanctions. Palestinian factions and observers see this term as unrealistic, especially that lifting the sanctions was earlier linked to dissolving the administrative committee and handing over Gaza ministries and crossings.
The sanctions imposed on Gaza, which include reducing power and medical supplies and cutting the salaries of PA employees, are still in place despite the reconciliation talks. The humanitarian situation in the territory, meanwhile, keeps worsening in view of the 11-year Israeli blockade.
Mike Flynn told one lie – the US government has told millions
By Adam Garrie | The Duran | December 2, 2017
At long last, the non-scandal of Russiagate has fully blossomed into an actual scandal.
Israelgate is here and far from exposing that officials and family members of officials in the US government frequently and disproportionately lobby on behalf of the interests of a foreign power with illegal nuclear weapons, it merely confirms what is widely known, but frequently hushed up due to the money which drives the Israeli lobby to levels of power which are stratospheric compared with that of other foreign powers, including superpowers like Russia and China.
The scandal of US politicians bending over backwards to do the bidding of a foreign power called Israel, in an age when few US politicians are considered responsive to the needs of their own voters, is the perennial dead horse of US politics among those with open eyes and the invisible elephant in the room to those who are wilfully blind.
While I, like millions of others in the world, view the leaders of the Israeli regime as criminals due to their oppression of Palestine, illegal occupation of Syria, illegal bombings of Syria and frequent violations of Lebanese sovereignty, in the case of Mike Flynn, Israeli leaders simply did what anyone in their position would do.
When Benjamin Netanyahu asked Donald Trump’s son-in-law to send Mike Flynn to multiple foreign embassies with a begging cup, asking them to do Israel’s bidding at the United Nations, Netanyahu was merely taking advantage of a good situation–he wanted value for money and he got it.
Imagine for example if another nation whose nuclear weapons cause some consternation such as North Korea was able to use a powerful US based lobby in order to get powerful US officials to run to embassies begging countries to vote against UN resolutions condemning North Korea?
You can’t imagine that, because it would not happen. The reason it would not happen is because the US is guilty of a selective enforcement of its own laws, selective ethics and selective morals.
It has now been proved that members of the Trump administration colluded with Israel to try and influence not only US policy, but the policy of other countries, including Russia. Mr. Flynn found out the hard way, that Russian foreign policy isn’t for sale as easily as US policy is. This is a massive scandal, except for the fact that no one cares.
If on the contrary, Flynn was instructed to lobby world powers to vote against anti-Russian resolutions, the level of hell that would break loose, would be unprecedented in scale.
This should not be surprising in a country that forces RT and Sputnik to register as “foreign agents” while Al Jazeera and the BBC, two state-owned foreign broadcasters are allowed to operate without question on US soil.
This is the same United States, that calls Iran a threat to world peace when it has no nuclear weapons, while ignoring Israel’s illegal nuclear weapons which, according to most estimates, outnumber those of North Korea.
This is the same United States, where Bill Clinton is considered a kind of hero in spite of his obscene relationship with Miss. Lewinsky, but where the careers of celebrities can be ruined based on allegations of personal misconduct, even though these allegations have not been proved as factual in a court of law. So much for the legal presumption of innocence until proven guilty.
The lack of consistency in the US is a scandal upon a scandal. In a country that preaches equality abroad, the US is a country where domestically, there is one rule for some and other rules for others.
Mike Flynn now admits that he lied. It’s high time for those in the US who told millions of deadly lies about Yugoslavia, Iraq, Libya, Syria and North Korea to come clean about their lies.
It’s time for those who call RT a foreign agent but say nothing about Al Jazeera and the BBC to admit to their double standards.
It’s time for the US to admit that blind servitude to Israel is now as American as baseball and apple pie, while even consulting countries that are not Israel, including countries which themselves have healthy but not fawning relations with Israel, such as Russia, is a crime.
America has a consistency problem, an integrity problem and an honesty problem.
All of these problems are easily cured if more people would admit what Mike Flynn has admitted.