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For those to whom the recent US campaign against Syria seems a deja vu of last summer's "near-war" attempt to ouster its president Bashar al-Assad, which was stopped in the last minute due to some very forceful Russian intervention and the near breakout of war in the Mediterranean between US and Russian navies, it is because they are. And as a reminder, just like last year, the biggest wildcard in this, and that, direct intervention into sovereign Syrian territory, or as some would call it invasion or even war, was not the US but Saudi Arabia - recall from August...

While it is beyond a doubt that the primary catalyst for Europe's triple-dip recession has been the nearly two quarters and counting of escalating Russian sanctions that were supposed to solely harm Putin (because who could have possibly foreseen that plunging German exports to Russia would have a far greater impact on the export-driven German economy), the truth is that the Kremlin itself is starting to hurt, if not so much as a result of the European trade embargo but mostly due to crashing oil prices, which have been driven lower almost exclusively by Saudi Arabia as part of its...

In a move that is certain to further escalate already stretched racial tensions in America's most cosmopolitan city, some 100 New York City buses will soon carry jarring anti-Islamic posters which feature photos of an ISIS beheading victim, his alleged executioner, Adolf Hitler, declare "Yesterday's moderate [Muslim] is today's headline" and proclaim "It's not Islamophobia, it's Islamorealism" as part of an "educational campaign." According to the NY Daily News, the ads, paid for by flame-throwing blogger Pamela Geller, at a cost of $100,000, are intended as an “education campaign” to warn of the “problem with jihad” and Islamic sharia law,...

If, when in February Victoria Nuland infamously launched a (not so) covert campaign to replace the ruling Ukraine president oblivious to the human casualties, resulting in a civil war in east Ukraine, NATO encroachment along the borders of Russia, and a near-terminal escalation in hostilities between Ukraine, Russian, and various regional NATO members, the US intention was to provoke the Kremlin so hard that the nation with the world's largest reserves of mineral and energy resources would jettison the US Dollar and in the process begin the unraveling of the USD reserve currency status (as much as Jared Bernstein desires...

First, Germany and UK (and Australia) - the USA' broad coalition of allies to strike ISIS - will not support airstrikes on ISIS in Syria. Second, Turkey - the USA's closest ally in NATO among the Middle East - denies them its airbases for use as launch sites of airstrikes and will not support airstrikes in Syria (after John Kerry visits) Third, Iraq's newly-installed US-friendly PM al-Abadi defies the US and halts airstrikes on ISIS-held civilian areas (leaving it up to the US to be the bad guys against his people once again), and Finally, The USA's proxy boots-on-the-ground -...

This is the worst possible time for Britain to consider leaving the EU – or for Scotland to break with Britain.

It's over: whether due to the complete domination of centrally-planned markets by a few central banks, whether as a result of HFTs forcing out all human traders and investors, whether due to volatility plunging to record lows and complacency at record highs, whether viewers simply aren't impressed by the new young, female faces that are increasingly taking over the primetime financial TV slots, because people are tired of Cramer's endless "caffeine" high and endless attempts to justify a record disconnect between manipulated record high "markets" and a stagnant economy in which some 53 million workers are "freelancers", or simply because...

The last 3 months have seen Russia's "de-dollarization" plans accelerate. First Gazprom clients shift to Euros and Renminbi, then the UK signs currency swap agreements with China, then NATO ally Turkey cuts ties and mulls de-dollarization, Switzerland jumps in the currency swap agreements, and BRICS create their own non-US-based funding vehicle, and then finally this week, Russia's oligarchs have shifted cash holdings to Hong Kong. But this week, as RT reports, Russian and Chinese central banks have agreed a draft currency swap agreement, which will allow them to increase trade in domestic currencies and cut the dependence on the US...

With the rabbit hole of conspiracies getting deeper by the hour, video has emerged showing what appears to be the "black box" flight data recorder from Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17 being taken from the crash scene. As NBC reports, the men in the video are wearing Ukrainian Emergency Ministry uniforms, but a senior Ukrainian official told a news conference Sunday that rebels had taken the black boxes. This fits with reports from The Hill that pro-Russian separatists have located the black boxes for the downed Malaysia Airlines passenger jet and will hand them over to international authorities, according to...

Sergey Glaziev the head of the Russian central bank in her discussion with Vladimir Putin, unveiled an elegant technical solution for this problem and left a clear hint regarding the members of the anti-dollar alliance that is being created by the efforts of Moscow and Beijing. On June 10th, Sergey Glaziev, Putin's economy advisor published an article outlining the need to establish an international alliance of countries willing to get rid of the dollar in international trade and refrain from using dollars in their currency reserves. The ultimate goal would be to break the Washington's money printing machine that is...

With tear-gas flying in the streets of Turkey, Ukraine's civil-war raging in the south and east, US drones based in Japan to oversee the South China Sea, and Europe's extremist parties gaining significant traction, today we get one more piece of considerably worrisome geopolitical news that global stock markets must ignore. The Sunday Times reports that Israel is to deploy three submarines equipped with nuclear cruise missiles in the Persian Gulf that are meant to act as a deterrent, gather intelligence and potentially to land Mossad agents. Iran is not happy, warning that "anyone who wishes to do an evil...

Two days ago, before it was formalized that the US tacitly, if not explicitly, now supports the removal of the Iraqi Prime Minister whom it itself had helped elect, we summarized the geopolitical tensions and "national interests" in Iraq, which is shaping up to be a proxy war that makes last year's Syrian escapade pale by comparison, as follows: ...

China began evacuating hundreds of its nationals from Vietnam (via at least 2 planes and 5 ships) as the anti-China protests have become increasingly deadly following Beijing's attempt to deploy an oil drill in Vietnamese dispuited waters (detailed here, here, here, and here)... *CHINA SENDING 5 SHIPS TO VIETNAM TO EVACUATE CHINESE: XINHUA*HUNDREDS OF VIETNAMESE SECURITY IN CENTRAL HO CHI MINH CITY*VIETNAM PRIME MINISTER ISSUES DIRECTIVE TO PREVENT PROTESTS*VIETNAM GOVT TAKES ACTION TO PREVENT RIOTS: BINH Hundreds of police and security forces are in central Ho Chi Minh city and the Chinese consulate is under heavy guard. Tensions across...

While the White House has continually threatened further sanctions against Russia for non-de-escalation (even as it un-de-escalates itself), the specifics of the additional sanctions have been sparse. German CEO warnings over blowback from economic sanctions... the "nonsense" of replacing Russian gas with US gas... the Russian warnings of "interdependence" and "boomerangs"... all reduce the West's arsenal of financial sanctions. But, as The Times of London reports, perhaps the US has found a crucial pain point for Putin - a sanctions regime that would target Putin's personal wealth, which includes a reported $40 billion stashed in Swiss bank accounts. As The...

Submitted by Simon Black via Sovereign Man blog, In the Land of the Free, people grow up hearing a lot of things about their freedom. You're told that you live in the freest country on the planet. You're told that other nations 'hate you' for your freedom. And you're told that you have the most open and fair justice system in the world. This justice system is supposedly founded on bedrock principles-- things like a defendant being presumed innocent until proven guilty. The right to due process and an impartial hearing. The right to counsel and attorney-client privilege. Yet each...

When it comes to Krugman's views on any particular topic, he may be right and he may be wrong, but whatever his opinion he always has a much to say about it (even if the factual backing is of secondary importance or outright missing). Today, his chosen topic is inequality, and in an interview with Bloomberg's Tom Keene, shown and transcribed below, he certainly says much, encapsulated perhaps by the following gem: "There's zero evidence that the kind of extreme inequality that we have is good for economic growth. In fact, there's a lot of evidence that it is actually...

Submitted by Mike Krieger of Liberty Blitzkrieg blog, Despite the seemingly strong empirical support in previous studies for theories of majoritarian democracy, our analyses suggest that majorities of the American public actually have little influence over the policies our government adopts. Americans do enjoy many features central to democratic governance, such as regular elections, freedom of speech and association, and a widespread (if still contested) franchise. But we believe that if policymaking is dominated by powerful business organizations and a small number of affluent Americans, then America’s claims to being a democratic society are seriously threatened. - From a recent...

In the aftermath of the disastrous, for both the US and Saudi Arabia, false flag campaign to replace the Syrian regime with one which would be amenable to allowing a Qatari gas pipeline to pass underneath the Al-Qaeda rebel infested country, there were numerous rumors that the reign of Saudi's infamous former ambassador to the US and current intelligence chief, Prince Bandar "Bush" bin Sultan - the man who we suggested was the puppetmaster behind the entire failed operation - had come to an end. Some two months ago, Shia Post reported that "News sources announced that the chief of...

Despite the ongoing propoganda machine's push for a bailout plan to 'liberate Europe from Gazprom's claws', The FT reports that the head of Cheniere Energy, which is due to become the US’s first new natural gas exporter next year, said the ability of US energy to save Europe from its dependence on Russian supplies had been overstated. Simply put, as Putin knows all too well (but Obama and his merry men in the mainstream media seem destined to perpetuate), Cheniere's CEO blasts "It’s flattering to be talked about like this, but it’s all nonsense. It’s so much nonsense that I...

With tensions rising ever faster in eastern Ukraine, the anti-government (pro-Russia) movement in Donetsk has taken dramatic steps to bolster itself by creating a "people's army," or National Army of Donetsk. As RT reports, masked men, who are mostly civil volunteers, but also police and army defectors, say they “defend their motherland from the fascist army that’s going to kill them.” They also demand “a referendum to be independent from Kiev” and are in favor of “being with Russia.” The Ukraine forces are moving in on Donetsk...