- Facebook Bans Trump-Retweeted 'Britain First' After Leaders Jailed For "Hate Crimes"
Facebook has taken down the pages of “Britain First”, a far-right group that entered the headlines last year when President Trump retweeted one of its videos, and those of its leaders as the company cracks down on posts that purportedly violate its rules about hate speech.
Per Bloomberg, Britain First’s Facebook page, and the pages of its leaders Paul Golding and Jayda Fransen, were taken down after they repeatedly posted content that was deemed to be “hate speech.”
The Britain First page had more than two million likes. Facebook didn’t confirm what posts were specifically responsible for the ban, but did say the group would be barred from creating a new page.
“We do not do this lightly,” said Facebook, “but they have repeatedly posted content designed to incite animosity and hatred against minority groups, which disqualifies the Pages from our service.”
…
“We have community standards that clearly state this sort of speech is not acceptable on Facebook and, when we become aware of it, we remove it as quickly as we can,” the company added. “Political parties, like individuals and all other organisations on Facebook, must abide by these standards and where a page or person repeatedly breaks our community standards we remove them.” The group will also not be allowed to set up any further pages in future.
Back in December, President Trump bristled at this characterization of Britain First as a “hate” group when he elicited condemnations from UK Prime Minister Theresa May and other world leaders after he retweeted videos initially tweeted by Britain First. One video showed a Muslim migrant attacking a Dutch man; another showed a man smashing a statue of the Virgin Mary. A third showed a man being pushed from the top of a building in Alexandria.
Trump even canceled what was supposed to be an informal visit to the UK over the backlash.
As the Guardian reported, Britain First was deregistered as a political party in November 2017.
And last week, Fransen and Golding (pictured above) were jailed for a series of hate crimes against Muslims. The pair, who received 36 weeks’ and 18 weeks’ imprisonment, were arrested in May 2017 as part of an investigation into the distribution of leaflets and online videos posted during a trial at Canterbury crown court in the same month.
The mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, said:
“Britain First is a vile and hate-fuelled group whose sole purpose is to sow division. Their sick intentions to incite hatred within our society via social media are reprehensible, and Facebook’s decision to remove their content is welcome.”
Despite all the backlash, a report released earlier this month by Hope Not Hate, an “anti-hate” group, showed that BF had the “second most liked Facebook page in the politics and society category in the UK – after the royal family.”
Britain First has nearly twice as many as Facebook likes as Labour – the mainstream party with the most Facebook likes. However, the group’s candidates have always performed poorly in elections.
- Fatal Quad: Who Is Assassinating MI6 Assets On British Soil?
Last week it was widely reported that a former Soviet and Russian military intelligence officer, Sergey Skripal — who had been working for MI6 since 1995 and had been convicted in Russia of high treason in 2006 before being released to the UK as part of the 2010 US-Russia spy swap — was found unconscious with his daughter on a public bench near a shopping center in Salisbury, Wiltshire, England. In Britain, the media and eccentric foreign minister were swift to blame Russian intelligence services of attempting to assassinate Skripal, who is currently still in coma in Salisbury District Hospital. In the past week the hysteria of the British press has escalated to the point of forcing PM Theresa May to issue an ultimatum to Russian president Putin.
This tragic case is one more episode in a series of suspicious and unsolved deaths in Britain of valuable MI6 assets from Russia: Alexander Litvinenko (2006), Alexander Perepеlichny (2012), and Boris Berezovsky (2013).
Alexander Litvinenko
This former officer in Russia’s FSB intelligence service, who was in charge of the surveillance and later the protection of the oligarch and government official Boris Berezovsky in the 1990s, defected to Britain in November 2000, soon after Russian prosecutors revived the Aeroflot fraud investigation and Berezovsky was once again questioned in court. That was at a time when the oligarch’s empire was being decimated by ongoing legal attacks instigated by the Russian government. Berezovsky clearly realised that he would eventually find himself in prison in Russia and so he began his quest for asylum, which would allow him to continue his political battle against the recently elected young Russian president Vladimir Putin. It is unclear whether Litvinenko defected at Berezovsky’s direct order or merely feared prosecution for crimes he might have committed as part of his collaboration with the oligarch who, according to the late Paul Klebnikov, was one of the kingpins of the Russian criminal world. As Litvinenko was not granted asylum in the UK until May 2001, we suspect that the negotiations over the terms of Litvinenko’s surrender to British intelligence services were not so easy. He did not possess any valuable intelligence, as he specialised in criminal investigation and security at the FSB, therefore he could be utilised only as a propaganda tool. This was the role he eventually accepted, after months of failed attempts to dodge this assignment, and he became a journalist for Chechenpress, supporting the most radical and intractable wing of the separatist movement in the Russian Caucasus, in addition to writing defamatory books and actively participating in every anti-Russia propaganda campaign in the international media.
From left to right: Alexander Litvinenko, Boris Serezovsky, Chechen leader Ahmed Zakaev, and the hired-gun writer Yury Felshtinsky celebrating Berezovsky’s 60th birthday in London, Jan 2006.
A few days after receiving his long-awaited British passport in October 2006, he was featured in the headlines of all the mainstream global media as the “polonium victim of Putin’s bloody regime”, thus greatly increasing the global emotional payoff from the modest investments MI6 had put into this miserable figure. An examination of the time line of his stay on “hospitable” British soil suggests that his citizenship was a milestone he had been desperately awaiting so as to free himself of his shameful dependency on Her Majesty’s intelligence service. Once that was obtained, he was off the hook and then became the perfect sacred sacrifice on the altar of the ongoing anti-Russia campaign. Thus they danced on his bones.
The inquiry into his death, ordered by then-Interior Minister Theresa May in July 2014 (!), was completed by January 2016 and the findings publicly released. William Dunkerley offered an exhaustive diagnosis of that report in his opinion piece, published in the Guardian shortly thereafter. We strongly recommend that our readers reacquaint themselves with his arguments. In a nutshell, he exposes the document as having been heavily influenced by the anti-Russia PR campaign, inconsistent, unreliable, biased, of dubious credibility, and lacking evidence.
Boris Berezovsky
The “Godfather” of the Kremlin, as Paul Klebnikov branded him in the book that eventually claimed his life, Boris Berezovsky was the personification of the oligarchy at its ugliest. He acted as the éminence grise to President Yeltsin in the 1990s, raking in vast profits for his business empire and attempting to manipulate the political process in Russia. He even reportedly “approved” the candidacy of Vladimir Putin as Yeltsin’s successor back in 1999, confident that he and his circle would be able to curb and control the neophyte politician.
His aspirations were soon subjected to a cold shower. Three weeks after Putin’s first inauguration, the Berezovsky-controlled media launched a powerful campaign of opposition to the president’s plans to reform Russia’s federal system, which would deprive Berezovsky and other tycoons of the tools they used to manipulate the regional authorities. These were the first maneuvers in a political war which lasted for more than 12 years. Berezovsky was resolutely and methodically squeezed out of all official positions in Russia, a number of charges were filed against him, accusing him of abusing his powers, financial fraud, and other crimes. In late 2000 he left Russia for good, settled in London, and began his vigorous, costly, but ultimately futile efforts to oust Putin and regain his own influence over the Kremlin.
Boris Berezovsky in London
By September 2012, when Vladimir Putin was elected for his third term and after Berezovsky had lost his case against his business rival Roman Abramovich in London’s High Court, he surrendered. He wrote two resentful private letters to President Putin asking for forgiveness and permission to return to Russia without fear of arrest. He did not receive a formal reply of any kind from the Russian president, but perhaps by March 2013 he had been given some kind of other positive signals from Moscow. Those close to him claimed that he was full of life and optimism and plans for the future on the very date of March 23, 2013 on which he was found dead in a bathroom of his home near Ascot. The official investigation concluded that it had been “an act of suicide”, but failed to provide any supporting evidence. The most likely explanation is that he had been about to leave Britain for good, along with his fiancée Katerina Sabirova (she had purchased e-tickets for travel to Israel that were to be used on March 25, 2013), and so the MI6 spymasters, who were in charge of supervising “project Berezovsky” and had been closely monitoring him and were aware of his intentions, could not afford to let out of their reach.
Alexander Perepеlichny
Alexander Perepelichny (R) with some of his “clients”, photo taken in 1990s.
Alexander Perepelichny was a Russian entrepreneur who specialised in what is delicately referred to as “private banking services”. He was laundering money for his clients, huge amounts of money acquired from illegal activities. Among those clients were a number of criminal bosses and corrupt government officials seeking to legitimise their funds by moving them into different types of assets outside Russia, mostly in the UK. Before the global economic crisis he possessed many hundreds of millions of US dollars entrusted to his management. Unfortunately for him, as a result of the Blue Monday Crash, he lost around US$200 million that belonged to his clients. Under increasing pressure from ‘some ‘grim-faced businessmen’ at home, in Jan 2010 he had to escape to Britain, where he quickly found a buyer for the sensitive information he possessed about some corrupt officials in Russia – a British investor and reported MI6 agent named William Browder, who had earned a fortune in Russia in 1990s and early 2000s, only to be later prosecuted there on tax fraud charges. Be it a coincidence or not, Perepelichny left Russia only weeks after the infamous Sergey Magnitsky mysteriously died in prison, an incident which appeared to be the cornerstone of a gargantuan, politically motivated case that resulted in the Magnitsky Act, the “Magnitsky list”, and other examples of gratuitous anti-Russia legal acts.
We are unable to delve into all the sprawling, amorphous details of the Magnitsky case today, although it deserves a very close look by unbiased researcher. What is really important for this topic is the following episode taken from William Browder’s breathtaking biography:
It took place in New York on Feb 3, 2015, when marshals from the U.S. District Court in Manhattan tried to serve him a subpoena to give evidence as part of the only trial thus far on US soil proceeding from the Magnitsky Act. (The details of that case can be found here.) The reason for Mr. Browder’s nervous behavior is obvious: his arguments served only political aims and were intended for cases in which the verdict is known from the beginning. But none of his claims could stand up to scrutiny by any experienced lawyer once real business interests were at stake, and this is exactly what happened with Mark Cymrot from BakerHostetler during Browder’s court deposition on Apr 15, 2015.
Returning to Perepelichny, we have to acknowledge that he was a key witness who could potentially destroy the high-political-stakes scam being conducted with the Magnitsky dossier. As Browder was responding with “I do not recall” and “I do not know” to any real question asked him in court, the US judiciary system might have been very interested in hearing from Perepelichny. This menace to the Magnitsky Act was eliminated one week before the bill passed the US House: on Nov. 10, 2012 Alexander Perepelichny was found dead outside his mansion in London. The police investigation did not yield any tangible results, but the theory of “Russian mafia” involvement was implanted in the international media at the proper time.
One month later the Magnitsky Act was signed by President Obama…
Sergey Skripal
As a public personality Sergey Skripal kept a far lower profile than any of the other three.
While working as a Russian military intelligence (GRU) officer, he was recruited in Spain in 1995 by MI6 agent Pablo Miller, pressured into cooperating after being threatened with the exposure of his illegal business dealings. For the next few years he was busy selling mountains of classified information about Russian military secrets to Vauxhall Cross, although not everything is clear about his relationship to the SIS. E.g. it is unclear why he resigned from the GRU in 1999 at age 48 to take a position in the Foreign Ministry (and later – the regional government) in which he would have far less access to information. He apparently wanted to terminate this worring relationship and perhaps he succeeded – again, the circumstances of how he was leaked to the Russian security services in 2004 are vague and murky. It looks very much like that same SIS deliberately allowed this leak in order to punish an unruly, poorly controlled asset with no access to any significant information.
In any event, after serving less than six years of his 13-year sentence, in 2010 he was added to the list of spies whose swaps were being negotiated by the US and Russia. Still we do not know whether the US included his name with the approval of their British partners or if Skripal perhaps arrived in Britain as a surprise guest.
Since then he had kept a low profile, living in Salisbury but reportedly advising British intelligence personnel about the workings of Russian clandestine operations. He would be of very little use to the Crown unless he were sacrificed as another innocent victim to justify the bugaboo of the “Russian threat” in the UK and worldwide.
Sergey Skripal with his daughter Yulia at their favorite Zizzi restaurant in Salisbury.
* * *
The one notable similarity shared by the very different individuals in this this foursome of exposed spies is that they all held an irrational belief in the reliability of the British justice and banking systems, other institutions, and intelligence services.
None of them seemed to fully appreciate the simple fact that they would only be treated as true gentlemen as long as they served British interests.
Once they began to represent even a potential threat to Britain’s ongoing political operations or once their current value dropped below a certain threshold, they were easily sacrificed to fulfill their final, “last, but not least” task – to serve as a log to be added to fuel the flames of Russophobia in their new and very temporary homeland.
- Cryptos Crash: Bitcoin Back Below $8k Into "Mystery Dip-Buyer" Territory
Today’s weakness in cryptos, driven initially by concerns over Google’s looming ad-ban, is accelerating overnight…
Hanging over the market still are concerns about next week’s G-20 meetings (and the possibility of a more global standard for cracking down on cryptos) as well as the massive Mt.Gox sale overhang.
Nobuaki Kobayashi, bankruptcy trustee for Mt. Gox, the largest bitcoin exchange in the world before hackers absconded with tens of thousands of customers’ bitcoins worth billions at recent prices, said he started selling in late September, meaning it’s quite possible he sold at least some of the coins at the highs reached toward the end of last year.
This is what Kobayashi’s “sells” look like on the chart of Bitcoin…
Still, Bloomberg reported that Kobayashi is sitting on another approximately $1.9 billion, which he says he plans to offload soon…
However, with Bitcoin battered back below $8,000, it has entered the “Mystery Dip-Buyer” Zone.
As a reminder, according to BitInfoCharts, a mysterious buyer with a Bitcoin address of 3Cbq7aT1tY8kMxWLbitaG7yT6bPbKChq64 purchased an astronomical amount of bitcoins worth $344,000,000 at a blended cost basis around $8,400 from 02-09-18 through 02-12-18.
In total, this Bitcoin whale doubled down adding nearly 41,000 coins for a new total of 96,000 coins worth somewhere around $900,000,000 at today’s price ($9,400).
Bitcoin address 3Cbq7aT1tY8kMxWLbitaG7yT6bPbKChq64 is number three on the top 100 richest Bitcoin address in the world.
So will “Mystery Dip-Buyer” come back in or will Kobayashi win?
- Whitehead: "Say No To 'Hardening' Schools With Zero-Tolerance Policies & Gun-Toting Cops"
Authored by John Whitehead via The Rutherford Institute,
Just what we don’t need: more gun-toting, taser-wielding cops in government-run schools that bear an uncomfortable resemblance to prisons.
Microcosms of the police state, America’s public schools already contain almost every aspect of the militarized, intolerant, senseless, overcriminalized, legalistic, surveillance-riddled, totalitarian landscape that plagues those of us on the “outside.”
Now the Trump Administration wants to double down on these totalitarian echo chambers.
The Justice Department, headed by Attorney General Jeff Sessions, has announced that it will provide funding for schools that want to hire more resource officers. The White House has also hinted that it may repeal “Rethink School Discipline” policies, heralding a return to zero tolerance policies that treat children like suspects and criminals, especially within the public schools.
As for President Trump, he wants to “harden” the schools.
What exactly does hardening the schools entail?
More strident zero tolerance policies, greater numbers of school cops, and all the trappings of a prison complex(unsurmountable fences, entrapment areas, no windows or trees, etc.).
Just when you thought this administration couldn’t get any more tone-deaf about civil liberties, they prove once again that they have absolutely no regard for the Constitution (especially the Fourth Amendment), no concept of limited government, and no concern for the growing need to protect “we the people” against an overreaching, overbearing police state.
America’s schools today are already about as authoritarian as they come.
Young people in America are now first in line to be searched, surveilled, spied on, threatened, tied up, locked down, treated like criminals for non-criminal behavior, tasered and in some cases shot.
Roped into the government’s profit-driven campaign to keep the nation “safe” from drugs, weapons and terrorism, many schools have transformed themselves into quasi-prisons, complete with surveillance cameras, metal detectors, police patrols, zero tolerance policies, lock downs, drug sniffing dogs, strip searches and active shooter drills.
It used to be that if you talked back to a teacher, or played a prank on a classmate, or just failed to do your homework, you might find yourself in detention or doing an extra writing assignment after school.
That is no longer the case.
Nowadays, students are not only punished for minor transgressions such as playing cops and robbers on the playground, bringing LEGOs to school, or having a food fight, but the punishments have become far more severe, shifting from detention and visits to the principal’s office into misdemeanor tickets, juvenile court, handcuffs, tasers and even prison terms.
These outrageous incidents are exactly what you’ll see more of if the Trump Administration gets its way.
Increasing the number of cops in the schools only adds to the problem.
Indeed, the growing presence of police in the nation’s schools is resulting in greater police “involvement in routine discipline matters that principals and parents used to address without involvement from law enforcement officers.”
Funded by the U.S. Department of Justice, these school resource officers have become de facto wardens in elementary, middle and high schools, doling out their own brand of justice to the so-called “criminals” in their midst with the help of tasers, pepper spray, batons and brute force.
For instance, 16-year-old Alex Stone was directed by his teacher to do a creative writing assignment involving a series of fictional Facebook statuses. Alex wrote, “I killed my neighbor’s pet dinosaur. I bought the gun to take care of the business.”
Despite the fact that dinosaurs are extinct, the status fabricated, and the South Carolina student was merely following orders, his teacher reported him to school administrators, who in turn called the police.
What followed is par for the course in schools today: students were locked down in their classrooms while armed police searched Alex’s locker and bookbag, handcuffed him, charged him with disorderly conduct disturbing the school, arrested him, detained him, and then he was suspended from school.
Not even the younger, elementary school-aged kids are being spared these “hardening” tactics.
Paradoxically, by the time you add in the lockdowns and active shooter drills, instead of making the schools safer, school officials have succeeded in creating an environment in which children are so traumatized that they suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder, nightmares, anxiety, mistrust of adults in authority, as well as feelings of anger, depression, humiliation, despair and delusion.
Instead of raising up a generation of freedom fighters—which one would hope would be the objective of the schools—government officials seem determined to churn out newly minted citizens of the American police state who are being taught the hard way what it means to comply, fear and march in lockstep with the government’s dictates.
So what’s the answer, not only for the here-and-now—the children growing up in these quasi-prisons—but for the future of this country?
How do you convince a child who has been routinely handcuffed, shackled, tied down, locked up, and immobilized by government officials—all before he reaches the age of adulthood—that he has any rights at all, let alone the right to challenge wrongdoing, resist oppression and defend himself against injustice?
Most of all, how do you persuade a fellow American that the government works for him when for most of his young life, he has been incarcerated in an institution that teaches young people to be obedient and compliant citizens who don’t talk back, don’t question and don’t challenge authority?
As we’ve seen with other issues, any significant reforms will have to start locally and trickle upwards.
For starters, parents need to be vocal, visible and organized and demand that school officials 1) adopt a policy of positive reinforcement in dealing with behavior issues; 2) minimize the presence in the schools of police officers and cease involving them in student discipline; and 3) insist that all behavioral issues be addressed first and foremost with a child’s parents, before any other disciplinary tactics are attempted.
As I make clear in my book Battlefield America: The War on the American People, if you want a nation of criminals, treat the citizenry like criminals.
If you want young people who grow up seeing themselves as prisoners, run the schools like prisons.
If, on the other hand, you want to raise up a generation of freedom fighters, who will actually operate with justice, fairness, accountability and equality towards each other and their government, then run the schools like freedom forums.
Remove the metal detectors and surveillance cameras, re-assign the cops elsewhere, and start treating our nation’s young people like citizens of a republic and not inmates in a police state.
- China And Russia Form Uranium Partnership
China and Russia are teaming up for a joint uranium mining project in Western Russia.
The ARMZ Uranium holding subsidiary of Russian state owned energy giant Rosatom will be partnering with the Russia-China Investment fund (RCIF) on the $325 million project in the Zabaikalsky region.
The Priargunsky Industrial Mining and Chemical Union will reportedly own 51% of the new project, while ARMZ will hold the remaining 49%. The majority of the financing will come from the China National Nuclear Corporation with a $282 million investment, while the RCIF will put up the rest.
The mine has a total reported reserves of 40,000 tons of uranium ore, with an annual capacity of 850,000 tons expected – and will break ground by 2023.
China is the first foreign country allowed to invest in Russian uranium mining, which the Kremlin has been aggressively pursuing as part of a “uranium dominance strategy” uncovered by undercover FBI whistleblower William D. Campbell, who supplied the agency with information from the highest levels of Russia’s nuclear industry.
The strategy included the purchase of Canadian-based Uranium One, which gave the Kremlin rights to 20% of American yellowcake uranium.
Campbell told lawmakers the purchase of the Uranium One assets and the securing of billions of new uranium sales contracts inside the United States during the Obama years were part of the “Russian uranium dominance strategy.” –The Hill
Campbell, despite being severely ill with cancer, testified before Congress about his undercover work – telling them of a scheme to route millions of dollars to the Clinton Global Initiative (CGI) through lobbying firm APCO, which was expected to funnel a portion of its annual $3 million lobbying fee to the charity.
“The contract called for four payments of $750,000 over twelve months. APCO was expected to give assistance free of charge to the Clinton Global Initiative as part of their effort to create a favorable environment to ensure the Obama administration made affirmative decisions on everything from Uranium One to the U.S.-Russia Civilian Nuclear Cooperation agreement.“ –William Campbell
Officials with APCO – the lobbying firm accused of funneling the money to the Clinton Global Initiative, told The Hill that its support for CGI and its work for Russia were not connected in any way, and involved different divisions of the firm.
Meanwhile, Russia’s Rosatom expects to sign foreign contracts worth $26 billion in 2018 for the construction and maintenance of nuclear power plants in India, Iran, Egypt, China and several other countries – including 16 plants in Saudi Arabia.
- Peak Gold Has Arrived
Authored by Alex Deluce via GoldTelegraph.com,
Following the recent market crash, investors lost $5.2 trillion worldwide before the market managed to recover most of the losses. There are hints that certain bubbles are ready to burst as the worlds biggest hedge fund positions accordingly.
In addition to the stock market, the global gold supply is weakening, leaving investors anticipating higher prices. In 2017, the gold supply plummeted the most since any year since 2008. If the supply of gold is really plateauing, experts are predicting a ‘peak gold’ period.
China, the world larger miner of gold, produced 453 tons of the metal in 2016. In 2017, China’s production fell by 9 percent. If production of gold continues to fall, a rise in global demand is a certainty. The demand will come from investors and centrals banks unwilling to rely on the dubious strength of the US dollar.
The Chinese are enjoying a boon economy, and the newly rich who can afford it are looking to buy physical gold in an effort to protect their wealth. China supplies its gold only domestically and does not export the metal. If China’s domestic gold supply is depleting, it will certain seek to buy gold elsewhere. Part of Chinese economic plan is to potentially reduce the global dominance of the dollar with the yuan.
The US dollar has dominated the global currency market for over 40 years. China, and Russia are actively increasing their gold reserves, which could lead to both economic and political uncertainties as more countries begin to dump US Treasuries. Both Russia and China are planning to use gold-backed currency as payment when trading with each other. This makes gold a critical commodity for both countries.
China might import gold to meet its own demand. But the available supply of gold is finite. During the past 15 years, global gold deposits have become depleted, and replacement deposits are becoming rarer each year.
World Gold Council Chairman Randall Oliphant has indicated that global gold production may have reach its peak. The time may come soon when the supply is not expected to meet the demand. The price of gold usually rises during times of economic slowdowns. How will the global financial market react when the supply of gold is running low and gold becomes an even rarer commodity?
China is not the only country producing less gold. South African and Australian gold deposits are showing signs of becoming depleted. The cost of exploring for new gold has become cost prohibitive and viable deposits are becoming more difficult to reach.
The potential of a worldwide shortage is good news for investors. Even as mines become exhausted, gold as a commodity will still exist. Gold differs from oil, which, once used up, is physically gone.
But gold mining and exploration will become more costly. For over 130 years, massive gold deposits were discovered in a number of countries. Gold has been easy to access and produce. During the late 20th century, some mines were producing as much as 50 million ounces of year a year. In the 21st century, mines producing 50 million or even 30 million ounces of gold no longer exist. Gold exploration is down to a few discoveries producing 15 million ounces annually.
The price of gold has fallen steadily since 2012. Mining companies are unable to fund new explorations. The time between gold discovery and active mining spans an average of seven years. This is a considerable time span between the exhaustion of old mines and the mining of new ones. And mining companies will find it difficult to bear the expense.
Once productive and seemingly endless gold deposits are depleting quickly. Forty percent of all the gold mined throughout history has come from the Witwatersrand Basin in South Africa. During the 1970s, an excess of 1,000 metric ton of gold was mined each year. In 2017, Witwatersrand Basin’s gold production fell 83 percent compared to 1970, down to 167.1 tons.
China, is still exploring veins for more gold. But how long will it be able to justify the cost as mining for gold that lays deeper in the earths crust? More capital is needed for further gold exploration globally.
Until that happens, the supply of gold will remain low and the demand will rise. This means that in the near future, this could serve as a major catalyst moving forward.
- EU Preparing To Unleash First-Ever Regulations Targeting Search Engines
Roughly nine months after Google’s parent company Alphabet was slapped with a 2.4 billion euro fine for “abusing its dominance in search,” Brussels bureaucrats are reportedly preparing to take things a step further and unleash Europe-wide regulations for search engines and other online platforms and apps. According to the Financial Times, which broke the story, the regulations are meant to protect companies that rely on Google, Apple or Amazon to sell their services or products.
European policymakers have been exploring ways to target “harmful” trade practices as many small firms in the region have complained that tech behemoths like Google have skewed search results to favor its own services over the services of its competitors. The issue has so far been left for members states to deal with. Of the largest European states, France has distinguished itself as among the most aggressive in trying to push back against the US-domiciled tech giants and their allegedly anti-competitive tendencies.
The regulations are also notable in that they represent the most stringent rules governing search engines’ behavior by a developed Western power.
Case in point: Earlier today, the French government warned that it could take legal action against Google and Apple over their “abusive” business practices.
“I believe in an economy based on justice and I will take Google and Apple before the Paris Commercial Court for abusive business practices” against French start-ups, said French Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire on a local radio program.
“I consider that Google and Apple, as powerful as they are, shouldn’t treat our start-ups and our developers in the way they do today,” said Le Maire, calling the situation “unacceptable”.
The news didn’t have much of an impact on shares of Google, Apple or their megacap-tech brethren.
The EU’s strike against what it refers to as “online intermediation services” was delayed in December so it could be tweaked to cover search engines, according to the FT, which obtained a draft of the regulations.
“Online intermediation services can hold superior bargaining power over their business users, enabling them to behave unilaterally in a way that is capable of harming the businesses using them,” the draft says, adding that search engine rankings are also potentially unfair and capable of causing economically significant harm.”
Under the new rules, tech companies would be required to supply companies with more information about how their ranking algorithms work. They also would need to provide a formal complaint to any company or app if Google decides to demote or de-list them from its search results.
While these regulations have reportedly been in the works for months – and aren’t entirely unexpected – the timing of Wednesday’s leak is notable. Given that a draft of the rules was quietly leaked to the FT, it could be construed as a tacit warning to the US: The European Union has more than one way to respond to US protectionism.
- Paul Craig Roberts Goes There: "World War 3 Is Approaching"
Authored by Paul Craig Roberts,
“In a nuclear war the ‘collateral damage’ would be the life of all humanity.” – Fidel Castro
The Russians, in their anxiety to show the West how friendly they are, left Washington with a toe hold in Syria, which Washington is using to reopen the war. The Russians’ failure to finish the job has left Washington’s foreign mercenaries, misrepresented in the American presstitute media as “freedom fighters,” in a Syrian enclave. To get the war going again, Washington has to find a way to come to the aid of its mercenaries.
The Trump regime has found, or so it thinks, its excuse in the revival of the Obama regime’s fake charge of Syrian use of chemical weapons. This made-up lie by the Obama regime was put to rest by Russian intervention that made sure there were no Syrian chemical weapons. Indeed, if memory serves, Russia delivered the chemical weapons to the US for destruction. Little doubt Washington still has them and will use some of them with their Syrian markings for what appears to be a coming false flag attack that can be blamed on Assad. In other words, Washington will create a “situation,” blame Assad and Putin, and with or without congressional authorization introduce US intervention in behalf of Washington’s mercenaries.
If we can believe James Mattis, the retired US Marine General who is US Secretary of Defense, Syria, a country without chemical weapons and in need of none in its mopping up operations against Washington’s mercenaries, is using chlorine gas “against its own people,” exactly the same phrase as the Obama regime used when Obama tried to orchestrate an excuse to attack Syria. Mattis said that he is receiving reports of chlorine gas use by Assad while simultaneously saying he has no evidence of gas use, much less by the Syrian Army.
The US Secretary of Defense actually accused Syria of “targeting hospitals” with chlorine gas even though he admits there is no evidence. Mattis went on to accuse Russia of complicity in killing civilians, an endeavor in which the US excels.
Stephen Lendman reports that CIA Director Pompeo “suggested a US attack on Syrian forces may be forthcoming, saying Trump won’t tolerate CW [chemical weapons] attacks, adding he hasn’t made a decision on the latest reports about chlorine gas use.”
US Secretary of State Tillerson joined the orchestrated allegation even though he admitted there was no evidence.
Of course, there has not been any chlorine gas use unless by the Washington-supplied mercenaries. But facts are not important to Washington. What is important to Washington is Israel’s demand that Washington destroy Syria and Iran in order to get rid of Hezbollah’s supporters so that Israel can seize southern Lebanon.
No doubt that other interests are in on the plot. Oil companies that want to control the location of oil and gas pipelines, the crazed neocons married to their ideology of American World Hegemony, the military/security complex that needs enemies and conflicts to justify its massive budget. But it is Israel’s determination to expand its boundaries and water resources that set all of the Middle East conflict in motion.
Does Russia understand this, or is the Russian government preoccupied with eventually winning acceptance by the West as a part of the West? If the latter, the world is heading for nuclear war.The Russian government does not seem to understand that its pusillanimous response encourages Washington’s aggression and, thereby, is driving the world to the final war.
Every time Russia fails to finish the job, as in Syria and Ukraine, Russia does not win Washington’s friendship, but extends to Washington yet another run at prevailing in the conflict that Washington initiated. Washington will not slack off until Washington is halted in its track, something that Russia does not seem willing to do. Consequently, Washington continues to drive the world to nuclear war.
When will the Russians notice that literally everyone in the Trump regime is issuing threats to Russia – Mattis, Tillerson, Nikki Haley, government spokespersons, the UK PM and UK Foreign Secretary. Yet the Russians still speak about their “partners” and how much they want to get along with the West.
There is no prospect whatsoever of the British going to war against Russia. The entirety of the UK would be instantly wiped out, yet the UK PM issues ultimatums to Russia.
Here is what Finian Cunningham has to say about the British prime minister threatening Russia:
Given their inveterate anti-Russian agenda, the British authorities have much more vested interest in seeing Skripal poisoned than the Kremlin ever would.
And while we are in “who done it?” mode, another important possible lead is this: if Venomous Agent X (VX) was used to harm the former Russian spy, the perpetrators would have had a convenient source by which to carry out their deed.
Britain’s top secret chemical weapons laboratory at Porton Down is only six miles away from the location in Salisbury where Skripal and his daughter were apparently attacked last Sunday afternoon. Porton Down is the laboratory where VX was originally synthesized in the 1950s. It remains one of the most deadly chemical weapons ever made. And it is as British as afternoon tea.
That’s motive and means. But, hey, who needs logic when Russophobia is the name of the game?
The entire Western world is insane. As Michel Chossudovsky says, the Western politicians and presstitutes who serve them are driving the world to extinction.
Note: It appears that the military/security complex is closing its grip on the Trump regime. Secretary of State Tillerson has been fired and is being replaced by CIA Director Pompeo. Gina Haspel, the new CIA Director, is the person who oversaw the CIA’s secret torture prisons in Thailand.
- Second Trump Organization Lawyer Involved In Silencing Stormy Daniels
The public relations battle being waged against President Trump by Stephanie Clifford – aka Stormy Daniels – a retired porn star who claims to have had an affair with Trump back in 2006 continued to rage Wednesday night when CNN, Washington Post and Wall Street Journal reported on what they characterized as “the first known link between Trump and the effort to silence” Daniels.
Specifically, documents from a February arbitration hearing turned over to the media show that a senior Trump Organization lawyer named Jill Martin filed some of the paperwork related to the hearing.
The documents, filed as part of confidential arbitration proceedings on Feb. 22, were made public Wednesday evening by CNN and the Wall Street Journal. The Washington Post confirmed their authenticity with Michael Avenatti, a lawyer for Daniels.
In a statement, the Trump Organization said it was not representing anyone in the Daniels dispute and “had no involvement in the matter.” One of its attorneys, Jill A. Martin, filed a document in her personal capacity while awaiting permission for another lawyer, not connected to the company, to practice in California, the statement said.
Martin has worked at the Trump organization since 2010, per WSJ.
Ms. Martin, a lawyer for the Trump Organization since 2010, has defended Mr. Trump both in court and in the media. She was a lead attorney for the Trump Organization in lawsuits alleging Mr. Trump’s real-estate seminars, Trump University, had defrauded customers.
The Trump Organization has so far claimed that it had no involvement in the matter…but Martin’s petition during the arbitration hearing is a direct link between Trump’s business and the Daniels affair.
In a statement, the Trump Organization said it was not representing anyone in the Daniels dispute and “had no involvement in the matter.” One of its attorneys, Jill A. Martin, filed a document in her personal capacity while awaiting permission for another lawyer, not connected to the company, to practice in California, the statement said.
In what appears to be a Cohen-like attempt at deflection, Martin emailed WSJ a statement showing that she facilitated the filing “in her individual capacity” until a New York-based lawyer gained approval to practice in California. “The company has had no involvement in the matter,” the statement said.
Filings from the arbitration battle – which Daniels lost – provided to WSJ by Daniels’ lawyer, Michael Avenatti, confirmed a connection between Essential Consultants and Trump. On Feb. 27, an arbitrator issued a temporary restraining order against Daniels that enforced the terms of the NDA. In response, Avenatti filed the suit in a Los Angeles court challenging the legitimacy of the arbitration agreement.
The crux of Avenatti’s defense, it seems, is that the agreement should be ruled invalid because Trump – who used the pseudonym David Dennison – neglected to sign the agreement.
To be sure, as WSJ points out, it isn’t known whether Trump helped organize the payoff. Cohen has said under oath that he made the $130,000 payoff to Daniels on his own initiative. His statement has been heavily scrutinized by a Washington watchdog, which has filed a complaint with the Federal Election Commission arguing that the payoff violated FEC rules because it was, in fact, a campaign related expense.
(Courtesy of WaPo)
Daniels received the money from Cohen in October 2016 after signing a non-disclosure agreement. According to its terms, Daniels is barred from speaking publicly about her liaison with the president. Violating the agreement could result in a fine of up to $1 million per violation.
And Martin’s services may be used more in the future, as Daniels’ lawsuit, filed in a Los Angeles court, proceeds. As we reported earlier, a hearing has been scheduled for June 12.
…And we’re certain we’ll be hearing more from Daniels and her lawyer between now and then.
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