The solar wind is a blistering 510 km/sec and there are seven sunspot clusters on the surface of the Sun today. A minor (Kp=5) geomagnetic storm is in progress as Earth enters a stream of solar wind flowing from a coronal hole on the sun. High-latitude sky watchers should be alert for auroras. New research by NASA's Meteoroid Environment Office shows that among all annual meteor showers the Perseids are the #1 source of fireballs. The first Perseid fireballs of 2013 are arriving now. Earth is entering a stream of debris from parent comet 109P/Swift-Tuttle, and meteoroids are hitting the top of the atmosphere at 135,000 mph.

Many readers are asking about a report in the Washington Examiner, which states that a Carrington-class solar storm narrowly missed Earth two weeks ago. There was no Carrington-class solar storm two weeks ago. On the contrary, solar activity was low throughout the month of July. The report is erroneous. The possibility of such a storm is, however, worth thinking about: A modern Carrington event would cause significant damage to our high-tech society. Earth is entering a broad stream of debris from comet 109P/Swift-Tuttle, source of the annual Perseid meteor shower. Although the shower won't peak until August 12-13, when Earth hits the densest part of the stream, the first Perseids are already arriving. "Despite poor weather over our network of meteor cameras, we detected three Perseid fireballs on July 30-31," reports Bill Cooke, head of NASA's Meteoroid Environment Office.

Diana West Brings a Blockbuster to Print at exactly the right time.Japan attacked Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941. It is a day that still lives in infamy, just as FDR predicted. According to Soviet intelligence reports, we now know that one of FDR’s top officials, the Treasury Department’s Harry Dexter White, was a Soviet agent, who, among many other deceptions, subverted relations between the US and Japan by inserting “ultimatum” language into the cable flow that actually spurred the Japanese attack. This was language written in Moscow, passed to White by a Soviet handler in Washington, D.C., and dropped into a State Department communiqué sent to Japan.This brilliantly executed influence operation doesn’t live in infamy – at least not yet. Along with other shocking intelligence findings about American agents of the Kremlin, it hasn’t been accepted into the general historical narrative. This weaving of the intelligence record into the historical narrative is the mechanism that propels American Betrayal.On Dec. 8, 1941, Japan attacked the Philippines, defended by Gen. MacArthur and 151,000 US and Filipino troops. This date doesn’t live in infamy, either. For the next seven months, however, until the last troops surrendered to Japan, Americans and Filipinos withstood deadly, punishing siege, as the record of loss and suffering at Corregidor, Bataan, and the Bataan Death March attests. Ten thousand

troops were killed at Bataan alone. Shockingly, these forces didn’t receive relief from the US from the day of attack to the day of surrender. Nor did they receive any assistance from our Soviet “ally,” which observed its neutrality treaty with Japan until one fateful land-grabbing week in August 1945.“A continuous stream of fighter and pursuit planes is traversing the Pacific,” FDR cabled MacArthur is early 1942, one of the extravagant lies FDR told to the people and forces under Japanese siege. No planes were on their way. Nothing was coming. But little wonder MacArthur ordered bulldozers to work around the clock to carve out four airstrips in the central Philippines and nine on Mindanao in expectation. Truth, John Hersey later wrote, would come “in mean little doses.” Meanwhile, the heavy flow of arms and material to Britain and the Soviet Union continued under Lend Lease, the massive program engineered by the Roosevelt White House to supply America’s allies including, controversially, Stalin. “I would go out and take the stuff off the shelves of the stores and pay them any price necessary, and put it in a truck and rush it to the boat,” FDR said to Treasury Secretary Henry Morgenthau on March 11, 1942. “Nothing would be worse than to have the Russians collapse.”Nothing? How about the collapse of those 151,000 American and Filipino troops who, at this touching moment of solicitude in the Oval Office for the Red Army, had just begun their fourth month of unreinforced, unsupplied, death-defying resistance to Japanese assault?Is there something wrong with this picture – something we have failed to notice over all these years?For the first 24 hours after Japan attacked, US military officials did reverse the flow of arms, aircraft and ammunition heading for England and the USSR for re-shipment to Hawaii and the Philippines – the patriotic reaction, the natural reaction. This, however, would be overruled from the top, as Lend Lease historian George C. Herring has noted.Why? Why wasn’t supplying US forces fighting Japanese in the Philippines taking immediate precedent over supplying Soviet forces fighting Germans in the USSR? Was this decision not to relieve our men being pounded at Corregidor and Bataan the terrible but unavoidable price of a winning strategy, as Americans have been taught? After all, the US and Britain, conspiring (the US was still neutral) before Pearl Harbor to combine forces to defeat Hitler, had settled on a Europe-first strategy to defeat the Axis powers: Nazi Germany, first; then, Imperial Japan. According to the hardened narrative, the Japanese attacks on Pearl Harbor and the Philippines changed nothing. Meanwhile, the same conventional wisdom has it, there were insufficient resources and too much risk involved in sending relief to MacArthur.

The general didn’t agree. Twenty years after the event, MacArthur wrote in his memoir Reminiscences that he believed the Navy had “deprecated its own strength and might well have cut through to relieve our hard-pressed forces. The bulk of the Jap Navy was headed south to seize Borneo, Malaya, and Indo-China. American carriers having escaped destruction at Pearl Harbor could have brought planes to the Philippines. The Navy fought the next two years and had great victories without any new ships.”Meanwhile, the US continued to sustain catastrophic losses while shipping Lend Lease supplies to Stalin through the Nazi U-boat-infested North Atlantic. Could the decision to abandon US forces to death or the horrors of Japanese POW camps by giving uninterrupted priority to the Red Army have had anything to do with the influence of the scores of Soviet agents and assets within reach of the levers of power inside the US government? How about the man driving military supply policy, the man behind Lend Lease? That man was Harry Hopkins and he was without question FDR’s top wartime advisor. As George Marshall would state in 1957 to his official biographer Forrest Pogue: “Hopkins’s job with the president was to represent the Russian interests. My job was to represent the American interests.”

When will Americans say enough is enough?CNN reports the CIA had dozens of operatives in Benghazi during the deadly September 11 attack last year, yet since the attack, the spy agency has allegedly engaged in an intimidation campaign of its own members to keep personnel quiet about the events of that night and why the CIA was in eastern Libya to begin with. 

“We’re getting calls from people who are close to people who were [in Benghazi at the time] that they were moving guns. So where are the guns?” asked Rep. Frank Wolf (R-VA), a sub-committee chairman of the Appropriations Committee. Wolf also wonders what Ambassador Chris Stevens was actually doing in Benghazi on that night. Stevens and three others were killed over the course of the attacks. 

“Are they in a warehouse somewhere? Some people say they moved on to Turkey and then from Turkey to Syria," Wolf told Breitbart News on Thursday. "Did they fall into the hands of some of the Jihadis?"

"Nobody knows, so I think there are so many questions from the failure to respond to where the guns went,” he stated.

Wolf is currently attempting to create a Select Committee to investigate the Benghazi attack by launching a discharge petition from committee. He needs 218 signatures to take the issue to a vote on the floor.

Senator Rand Paul (R-KY) first asked then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton during a congressional hearing about her knowledge of any gun running coming out of the CIA annex in January. Clinton claimed she did not know anything about the issue and referred Paul to the CIA for such questions.

Additionally, members of Congress’s Super Eight, (consisting of both parties’ leaders in both chambers, along with House and Senate Select Intelligence committee chairs and ranking members) would have been required to have been briefed on such gun running activity. Five of the eight members have either said they knew nothing about any gunrunning that was happening in Benghazi or claimed the issue cannot be spoken about because it is classified. 

McClatchy News reported recently the similar response it received when asking about the issue regarding the U.S. government's role in arming Syrian rebels.

On January 24, House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) told talk radio host Laura Ingraham in regards to Paul's remarks on gunrunning, “I’m somewhat familiar with the chatter about this and the fact that these arms were moving towards Turkey, but most what I know about this came from a classified source and I really can’t elaborate on it.” 

According to CNN,  CIA employees have been subjected to frequent polygraph examinations every month since January of this year. These types of examinations, however, are routinely done every three to four years; their frequency is being described as an “intimidation” tactic:

"Agency employees typically are polygraphed every three to four years. Never more than that," said former CIA operative and CNN analyst Robert Baer.

In other words, the rate of the kind of polygraphs alleged by sources is rare.

"If somebody is being polygraphed every month, or every two months it's called an issue polygraph, and that means that the polygraph division suspects something, or they're looking for something, or they're on a fishing expedition. But it's absolutely not routine at all to be polygraphed monthly, or bi-monthly," said Baer.

CIA spokesman Dean Boyd asserted in a statement that the agency has been open with Congress.

"The CIA has worked closely with its oversight committees to provide them with an extraordinary amount of information related to the attack on U.S. facilities in Benghazi," the statement said.

In the third part of his interview with Breitbart News on Obamacare defunding efforts, Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) said that President Barack Obama, congressional Democrats, and the institutional left want to drag out the Obamacare fight as long as possible. 

If they force Republicans to keep waiting to rid the country of the law, Cruz thinks they will have hooked Americans on the subsidy to the point where it cannot ever be repealed.

“It is why hand in hand with delaying the employer mandate for big corporations, the Obama administration announced it wasn’t going to enforce the eligibility requirements for the subsidies,” Cruz said.

Cruz continued:It’s essentially encouraging liar loans, encouraging fraud for people who come forward and say, "I qualify for a subsidy," and the Obama administration saying, "we’re not going to check on anything, we’re just going to take your word for it and grant you the subsidy." That is all Chicago-style politics designed to buy as many votes as possible. It is why the fight is now or never.

Cruz added that if Republicans choose not to fight Obamacare this September, the left, Obama, and the Democrats win, and Republicans lose.

“An awful lot of politicians in Washington, both Democrats and Republicans are more focused on staying in power, on getting re-elected, than they are in fighting for principle,” Cruz said. “I

think that’s why there’s such tremendous frustration among the American people with career politicians in both parties."

Cruz said:There’s a reason why Congress routinely polls with 10, 12, 14 percent approval rating. It’s because politicians in both parties have been ignoring the American people for a long time. I’ll give you an example just to sum up. Every poll that is done in this country, of Republicans, of Democrats, of independents, underscores that the top priority for the American people is jobs and the economy. It’s restoring economic growth and getting people back to work.

Even though more Americans want their lawmakers to focus on the economy, the freshman Cruz said Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and Obama have done anything but since he came to Washington.

“And yet, in the seven months I’ve been in the Senate, we have spent virtually zero time talking about or being focused on jobs and the economy,” Cruz said. “Why? Because it’s not a priority for Harry Reid or President Obama. Instead we spent months on the president’s agenda to take away our Second Amendment rights, we spent months on an agenda to grant amnesty to those who are here illegally and we spend no time on tax reform, on regulatory reform, on restoring economic growth, to create jobs and to make it easier for people to achieve the American dream."

Cruz said, "The single biggest step Congress could take to restore economic growth, to help people get back to work, to expand opportunity for those struggling to climb the economic ladder, is to defund Obamacare.”

An Arctic blast has gripped the Midwest and Northeast, with a perilous combination of bitterly cold air and gusty winds making it feel like winds 50 degrees below zero and enough snow and ice to cancel schools and make driving treacherous.In Washington, D.C., it was 15 degrees at Reagan National Airport on Wednesday morning, the coldest it has been there in nearly four years, since March 3, 2009.The bitter conditions were expected to persist into the weekend in the Midwest through the eastern half of the U.S., said Shawn DeVinny, a National Weather Service meteorologist in suburban Minneapolis.Authorities suspect exposure has played a role in at least four deaths so far."I am wearing a Snuggie under a top and another jacket over that," said Faye Whitbeck, president of the chamber of commerce in International Falls, Minn., a town near the Canadian border where the temperature was minus 30 on Tuesday morning. The so-called "Nation's Icebox" reached a balmy 3 below for a high. "I pulled out a coat that went right to my ankles this morning and I wore two scarves."(MORE: 5 Incredible Temperature Swings)Play Video

Winds blasting across the Great Lakes over the past few days into Tuesday also resulted in up to 18 inches of snow dumped over northeast Ohio, northwest Pennsylvania and upstate New York.Schools, set to resume classes on Tuesday after Monday's national holiday in honor of Dr. Martin Luther King, were canceled in some states including Massachusetts and Ohio.Wind chill advisories were in effect throughout the Midwest and Northeast, with last winter's unseasonably warm temperatures making this January blast seem even colder, forecasters said.As a result, temperatures felt like 50 degrees below zero in isolated sections of the upper Midwest and to minus 30 degrees in parts of Maine, Vermont, New Hampshire and upstate New York. But as cold as it's been, there hasn't been a remarkable number of record lows, said Nick Wiltgen, a meteorologist with The Weather Channel.

"These temperatures have not even come close to ranking among January's 10 coldest days or nights on record at long-term observation sites," Wiltgen said.In Milwaukee, where the temperature was just 2 degrees at noon Tuesday, police checked under freeway overpasses to find the homeless and urge them to find a shelter. The United Way of Greater Milwaukee has donated $50,000 to two homeless shelters so they can open overflow centers."We're incredibly relieved," said Donna Rongholt-Migan, executive director of the Cathedral Center, a Milwaukee shelter that received $25,000. "I was walking my dog last night and I couldn't feel my legs just after walking around the block."The plunging temperatures made life plenty miserable for plumbers.Workers in Madison had to repair at least four water main breaks since Sunday afternoon. Jim Gilchrist, a third-generation plumber in the Chicago suburb of Oak Park, said he received about five or six calls Tuesday from people with frozen water pipes in their homes. Few pipes had actually burst -- yet."We'll probably get those calls later, as pipes begin thawing" and develop a split, Gilchrist said. Today they just know they don't have water; tomorrow they will have water spraying."At least two fires in southern Wisconsin were blamed on property owners using heaters or other means to thaw frozen pipes. In one case, a dairy barn was destroyed, and in the other, a mobile home was lost. No one was hurt.Climate scientists have linked the massive snowstorms and bitter spring weather now being experienced across Britain and large parts of Europe and North America to the dramatic loss of Arctic sea ice.Both the extent and the volume of the sea ice that forms and melts each year in the Arctic Ocean fell to an historic low last autumn, and satellite records published on Monday by the National Snow and Ice Data Centre (NSIDC) in Boulder, Colorado, show the ice extent is close to the minimum recorded for this time of year."The sea ice is going rapidly. It's 80 percent less than it was just 30 years ago. There has been a dramatic loss. This is a symptom of global warming and it contributes to enhanced warming of the Arctic," said Jennifer Francis, research professor with the Rutgers Institute of Coastal and Marine Science.(MORE: Why Arctic Sea Ice Melts So Quickly)According to Francis and a growing body of other researchers, the Arctic ice loss adds heat to the ocean and atmosphere which shifts the position of the jet stream – the high-altitude river of air that steers storm systems and governs most weather in northern hemisphere."This is what is affecting the jet stream and leading to the extreme weather we are seeing in mid-latitudes," she said. "It allows the cold air from the Arctic to plunge much further south. The

pattern can be slow to change because the [southern] wave of the jet stream is getting bigger. It's now at a near record position, so whatever weather you have now is going to stick around," she said.Francis linked the Arctic temperature rises to extreme weather in mid latitudes last year and warned in September that 2012's record sea ice melt could lead to a cold winter in the UK and northern Europe.She was backed by Vladimir Petoukhov, professor of Earth system analysis at Potsdam Institute in Germany, whose research suggests the loss of ice this year could be changing the direction of the jet stream."The ice was at a record low last year and is now exceptionally low in some parts of the Arctic like the Labrador and Greenland seas. This could be one reason why anticyclones are developing," he said.(PHOTOS: Record Lows for Spring Break?)The heavy snowfall and freezing temperatures which have marked March 2013 across the northern hemisphere are in stark contrast to March 2012 when many countries experienced their warmest ever springs. The hypothesis that wind patterns are being changed because melting Arctic sea ice has exposed huge swaths of normally frozen ocean to the atmosphere would explain both the extremes of heat and cold, say the scientists.A recent paper by the US government's National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) also found that enhanced warming of the Arctic influenced weather across the northern hemisphere.“The sea ice is going rapidly. It's 80 percent less than it was just 30 years ago.” Jennifer Francis"With more solar energy going into the Arctic Ocean because of lost ice, there is reason to expect more extreme weather events, such as heavy snowfall, heat waves, and flooding in North America and Europe," said the researchers.The Met Office's chief scientist has previously said the melting Arctic ice is in part responsible for the UK's recent colder winters.The possible links between Arctic sea ice loss and extreme weather were made as the UK's government's outgoing chief scientific adviser Sir John Beddington warned that the world could expect more extremes of weather."The [current] variation we are seeing in temperature or rainfall is double the rate of the average. That suggests that we are going to have more droughts, we are going to have more floods, we are going to have more sea surges and we are going to have more storms." He said that said there was a "need for urgency" in tackling climate change."These are the sort of changes that are going to affect us in quite a short timescale," he warned. Last year saw record heat, rainfall, drought and floods in the northern hemisphere.

Gold Falling to the Bottom BelowAdam Hamilton     April 19, 2013     3637 Words Holy cow, not even the most vociferous gold bears saw that one coming!  Gold just suffered what can only be described as a panic.  This metal plummeted so fast that its price surrendered a staggering 1/7th of its value in just two trading days!  This blistering decline was so extreme it even dragged the general stock markets down with it.  Shell-shocked gold investors are nervously wondering what to make of it. The gold panic certainly caught me unaware, even after a dozen years of relentless study and very profitable trading of this secular gold bull.  We were and are heavily deployed in dirt-cheap gold stocks in light of gold’s incredibly bullish technicals and sentiment.  Seeing one of gold’s fastest selloffs ever wasn’t even in the probability space, it should have been effectively impossible.  Yet it still happened.

 That’s the problem with panics, they are so extraordinarily rare that they can’t be predicted.  2008’s crazy stock panic was the first true panic in 101 years, since 1907.  The last stock selloff that even approached panic-magnitude before that happened in late 1974.  So these events are separated by several decades to a century, making them impossible to game.  Not one in a hundred selloffs cascades into a panic. Gold’s recent plunge was crash-like as well, but couldn’t have been a crash.  While panics cascade from lows after long declines, crashes erupt from record highs after long rallies.  Crashes, which are also ultra-rare, are only seen immediately after major multi-year bull runs where euphoria just drove a parabolic terminal ascent.  That certainly doesn’t describe gold’s weak downward price action over the past 6 months or so. Gold was already low and unloved leading into its incredibly improbable panic.  On last Thursday’s close before the mayhem started, gold was already down 12.9% since its recent early-October interim high and 17.6% under its August 2011 bull high.  This was very reminiscent of 2008’s stock markets where the SPX was already down 22.5% over nearly a year just before it would plummet 30.0% in a single month. Panics are ultra-extreme sentiment events that cascade out of lows when bearishness is already high.  They are epic superstorms of fear that roar in and suddenly grip traders’ hearts, driving outsized selling so crazy that it would be utterly impossible any other time.  Gold plunged 4.7% last Friday, and another 9.6% on Monday!  The kind of universal fear and selling pressure necessary to trigger that is staggering. I’ve never seen anything like this gold panic, no one has.  Our gold-price data goes back to 1969, an exceedingly-long 44-year span.  Americans couldn’t even legally own gold bullion before late 1974 thanks to another tyrannical Democratic President!  There have only been two other comparable selloffs in nearly a half century, in January 1980 after the last secular bull’s parabolic climax and February 1983. That January 1980 event was actually a crash marking the end of the mighty secular gold bull of the 1970s.  Gold plummeted 13.2% the day after its peak and 18.2% in the two days after.  Realize gold was in a popular speculative mania then, drenched in euphoria.  It had skyrocketed an astonishing 200.4% higher in just over 5 months, a far cry from its 12.9% decline in the 6 months leading into this panic. Now that, a tripling in 5 months, is what a bubble looks like friends!  I can’t believe the number of knuckleheads I’ve seen on CNBC this week who claimed gold was recently in a bubble so its massive selloff was justified.  They obviously know nothing about gold and nothing about speculative manias, which strips all credibility from their weathervaney hyper-bearish outlook.  Gold was weak pre-panic! Naturally the sharpest gold selloff of our lifetimes after the post-bubble crash in January 1980 is going to wreak catastrophic technical damage.  There’s no way a 13.8% two-day plummet isn’t going to leave a mark, no matter which gold chart you are looking at.  A fear and selling anomaly that extreme is going to leave all gold’s technicals hopelessly broken.  A panic’s technical carnage is complete, utter devastation.

Panics are extreme herd behavior, nearly everyone succumbing to fear at once and frantically galloping for the hills.  So I don’t even know if they are explainable, since the herd ignores innumerable sparks for decades on end until one inexplicably ignites a stampede for the exits.  Nevertheless, we have to try and understand this gold panic and its implications.  And like everything in the markets, that requires context. 

The lead in to the gold panic starts way back in the summer of 2011.  Fears of Washington actually defaulting on US Treasuries in the last debt-ceiling fight spawned a rare summer surge in gold.  Flight capital poured into this metal so it simply shot up too far too fast, becoming very overbought.  Right at the peak I warned that a sharp gold correction was imminent, as excessive popular greed is never sustainable.

When we watch where the eagles fly, we can usually tell where the carcass lies. Not so this time. The eagles are just flying.

GOLD AUDIO

When the richest men on Earth are hoarding cash and only cash, it is a sure sign that the crash is coming. Dozens of market-driving stocks are priced at hundreds of items their earnings. That means some naked short traders got caught in the margin call and have to buy billions of shares wherever they can find them and money is no object. The only object is to meet that margin call and to be able to return to trade another day. When the bleeding stops, either with the financial death of the trader, or the meeting of the margin calls, those stocks will return to their nominal levels of about 10 to 15 times earnings. When that happens, those who are holding on to liquid assets, also known as cash, will be able to scoop entire market sectors for pennies on the dollar.

Sound familiar? The banks are crafting this in a masterful plan to quite possibly take over the world. With a staggering $648 trillion in derivatives out there standing like a 10 thousand foot high house of cards, it will be crash heard all the way to the center of the galaxy. What can you do about it? Stay out of debt. Stay liquid. Invest in hard manufacturing and not in fluffy commodities.

Oh yeah there’s more.

Syria limits foreign currency use, threatens traders with jailSun Aug 4, 2013 8:16am EDT Aug 4 (Reuters) - Syrian traders who price goods in foreign currency will face up to 10 years in jail, the government announced on Sunday in a move aimed at stemming the increasing dollarisation of an economy crippled by two years of civil war.

A decree issued by President Bashar al-Assad "forbids the use of anything other than the Syrian pound as payment for any type of commercial transaction or cash settlement".

Traders who violate the law face up to three years in jail and a fine equivalent to double the value of the payment. If the sum involved is over $5,000, punishment could rise to 10 years with hard labour, according to the decree published by state media.Bankers said Sunday's move reinforced existing prohibitions on pricing goods in dollars - a law which has been increasingly flouted after sharp falls and wild fluctuation in the Syrian pound - and said the penalties had been stiffened."It's to prevent people from fleeing to the dollar," said one Damascus banker, adding the decree would not have an impact on banking operations."It does not in any way affect the banking sector - the country needs foreign currency transfers," he said. "The idea is that people don't all think in dollar terms as if there is no local currency. It's more a psychological move with the currency crumbling."

Sharp falls and fluctuations in the Syrian pound have led to increasing use of the U.S. dollar in all walks of life, by food sellers and manufacturers, taxi drivers and importers.Before protests against Assad's rule erupted in March 2011 the pound stood at 47 to the dollar. After two years of war and economic collapse, it now changes hands for around 200, and briefly fell as low as 300 last month, exchange dealers say.Devastation to the commercial and industrial cities of Aleppo and Homs, together with the loss of foreign currency earnings as oil exports and tourism dried up, have hit the economy hard. Damage is estimated in the tens of billions of dollars and this year's wheat crop is expected to fall by half.The weakness and volatility of the local currency has pushed up inflation and left many shopkeepers struggling to price their goods in local currency."Having dollars, depositing them and using them as a currency of savings has never been outlawed but even before the crisis, dealing with dollars in domestic commercial transactions was banned," said a chief currency dealer in a Damascus bank."This is a law that imposes more penalties," he said. "Syrians can get transfers in dollars and importers can still price their goods in dollar but they cannot put dollar price tags on goods sold," he said.

Syria limits foreign currency use, threatens traders with jail

inShare0

Share this

Email

Print

RELATED NEWS Syria's Assad says he certain to defeat rebels

Thu, Aug 1 2013 REFILE-FOREX-Euro, pound fall vs dollar as ECB, BoE set to keep easy policy

Thu, Aug 1 2013 UPDATE 2-Brazil currency ends flat as central bank acts, Fed fears ease

Wed, Jul 31 2013 Iran grants Syria $3.6 billion credit to buy oil products

Wed, Jul 31 2013ANALYSIS & OPINION

Mongolia’s economic fairytale faces reality check Al Qaeda group kidnaps Italian Jesuit Paolo Dall’Oglio in Syria: activists

RELATED TOPICS Currencies » Regulatory News » Markets »

BEIRUT | Sun Aug 4, 2013 8:16am EDT

Aug 4 (Reuters) - Syrian traders who price goods in foreign currency will face up to 10 years in jail, the government announced on Sunday in a move aimed at stemming the increasing dollarisation of an economy crippled by two years of civil war.A decree issued by President Bashar al-Assad "forbids the use of anything other than the Syrian pound as payment for any type of commercial transaction or cash settlement".

Traders who violate the law face up to three years in jail and a fine equivalent to double the value of the payment. If the sum involved is over $5,000, punishment could rise to 10 years with hard labour, according to the decree published by state media.

Bankers said Sunday's move reinforced existing prohibitions on pricing goods in dollars - a law which has been increasingly flouted after sharp falls and wild fluctuation in the Syrian pound - and said the penalties had been stiffened.

"It's to prevent people from fleeing to the dollar," said one Damascus banker, adding the decree would not have an impact on banking operations.

"It does not in any way affect the banking sector - the country needs foreign currency transfers," he said. "The idea is that people don't all think in dollar terms as if there is no local currency. It's more a psychological move with the currency crumbling."

Sharp falls and fluctuations in the Syrian pound have led to increasing use of the U.S. dollar in all walks of life, by food sellers and manufacturers, taxi drivers and importers.

Before protests against Assad's rule erupted in March 2011 the pound stood at 47 to the dollar. After two years of war and economic collapse, it now changes hands for around 200, and briefly fell as low as 300 last month, exchange dealers say.

Devastation to the commercial and industrial cities of Aleppo and Homs, together with the loss of foreign currency earnings as oil exports and tourism dried up, have hit the economy hard. Damage is estimated in the tens of billions of dollars and this year's wheat crop is expected to fall by half.

The weakness and volatility of the local currency has pushed up inflation and left many shopkeepers struggling to price their goods in local currency.

"Having dollars, depositing them and using them as a currency of savings has never been outlawed but even before the crisis, dealing with dollars in domestic commercial transactions was banned," said a chief currency dealer in a Damascus bank.

"This is a law that imposes more penalties," he said. "Syrians can get transfers in dollars and importers can still price their goods in dollar but they cannot put dollar price tags on goods sold," he said.

Guess Who’s Coming to Dinar?

Get ready. Our world is about to undergo a total and complete

metamorphosis. Despite what you see on the nightly news channels

and mainstream newspaper headlines, the world we have grown

accustomed to is going to be transformed from top to bottom ––

spectacularly! Magnificently!

In fact, our world has already been deep in the throes of change now

more than any other period in the recorded history of mankind –– bar

none. As many anxiously await a series of major events to unfold,

most particularly the Global Currency Reset to be implemented, we

must always be mindful of the overall big picture.

 

   The US Constitution (photo caption corrected

7.28.13)     

In assessing the big picture, we can truly appreciate the unprecedented amount of progress which has been

made, and continues to be made, towards the liberation of the human race just within the last few weeks alone.

It is truly astounding to see.

At this stage of the game, it is clear the mindset of the world has escalated into a very high state in order to

prepare itself for an impending, global event of the greatest magnitude. There clearly are many, many signs

indicating a strong sense of urgency is stirring within numerous countries as a brilliant, grand plan is coming

more and more into focus with each passing day and in each passing hour.

The grand plan we are witnessing now is nothing less than historic. Yes, historic. Let's take a quick review of

what has transpired over the last six weeks or so.

–  June 7 - 9th: President Barack Obama and Chinese President Xi Jingping meet in Palm Springs, California

for negotiations on the Basel III accords, the Global Currency Reset and the Restoration of the Republic.

– June 27th: The United Nations Security Council votes 15 - 0 to lift Chapter 7 sanctions against the country of

Iraq after nearly 23 years of hardships on the Iraqi people. This is Iraq’s biggest achievements since the ouster

of Saddam Hussein a decade ago, allowing Baghdad to regain control over its own currency, oil and economy.

– June 28th: The Iraqi Stock Exchange (ISX) is officially approved to become part of the NASDAQ system.

– June 28th:  An accountant employed at the Vatican bank, Monsignor Nunzio Scarano, is arrested and

charged with smuggling large caches of money across international borders.

–  July 1st: Two top officials at the Vatican Bank resign amid a growing money laundering scandal as rumors

continue to swirl Pope Francis may shut down the scandalous and criminal Vatican Bank entirely.

–  July 2nd: The Federal Reserve Board votes 10 - 0 to adopt the new Basel III banking regulations.

–  July 9th: The Federal Depository Insurance Corporation (FDIC) also votes to adopt the Basel III banking

regulations.

–  July 9th: The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) agrees to adopt the Basel III provisions.

– July 10th: Treasury Secretary Jack Lew meets with a Chinese delegation to work out final details of the

Global Currency Reset.

– July 11th: An updated version of the Glass - Steagall Act is reintroduced for vote in the US Senate led by

Senators Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) and John McCain (R-Ariz.) which would require all the major, "too-big-to-

fail" banks to be completely overhauled and downsized.

– July 15th: The Iraqi Stock Exchange opens for international trading for approximately two hours to test if

their system interfaces correctly with NASDAQ. In order for the ISX to conduct international trading, the logical

next step is for Iraq to revalue their dinar in order to have an internationally recognizable currency.

– July 18th: Confirmed reports emanating out of the United Nations (UN) insist the revaluation of the Iraqi

dinar was announced within the UN itself by two foreign countries, one of which may have been the delegation

from Iraq.

– July 20th: Fox News briefly reports US Secretary of State John Kerry offering confirmation of the adoption of

the Basel III banking regulations.

– July 21st: Numerous reports of banks across the US, and apparently some in the UK, announcing to their

customers various down times for system maintenance including the international service known as SWIFT

(Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunications).

– July 23rd: More rumblings coming out of the UN as a growing chorus of impatience continues to swell

amongst some its member nations who openly question why the Global Currency Reset has not been enacted

yet.

By any stretch of the imagination, the sheer number of astounding events listed above marks nothing less than

a complete changing of the guard. These kinds of developments would not even happen, if the old regime was

still in charge. We simply have not seen this kind of significant activity on both a national and international scale

ever, ever before.

STAGE IS SET FOR A RETURN TO THE GOLD STANDARD

What should we expect to see next? One of the most important final steps most anticipated is some kind of

acknowledgment that the United States has returned to the gold standard. Whether it comes in the form of a

formal announcement remains to be see. It has been nearly 41 years since President Richard M. Nixon

removed the US from the gold standard, setting the stage for hyper-inflation of the dollar and the manufactured

global financial crisis of 2007.

Make no mistake about it, the current world-wide financial crisis was totally engineered by the international

bankers, the Federal Reserve, Ben Bernanke in collusion with the George W. Bush, Jr. administration in order

to bring about their frightful New World Order agenda. Instead of succeeding towards that objective, it had just

the opposite effect of mobilizing and waking up a world-wide resistance force which has stood tall to stop the

NWO dead in its tracks.

As we outlined in our previous article, "At the Precipice of a Brave New World," a return to the gold standard

seems to be assured for the United States from all of the blatant symbolism alone found on the new $100 bill

due to be released on October 8, 2013.

There was an air of high expectation on July 17th, when US Treasury Secretary, Jack Lew, appeared on

CNBC's "Delivering Alpha" conference. Many had anticipated Secretary Lew would take the opportunity to

formally announce a return to the gold standard. Alas, he did not. However, it appears that announcement is

still very much in the cards.

A HEIGHTENED NEED FOR SECURITY

Nonetheless, the lingering question remains, why has the Global Currency Reset not happened as of yet,

despite many sensing it is so very, very close? And the simple answer to that question is one word, and one

word only –– security.

Banker Wars

We must realize how much monumental hard work has been invested into this process, by a wide assortment

of people from a variety of entities. These entities come from across the spectrum, many of which have banded

together and include: the Chinese elders; the Chinese government; Russia; the BRICS alliance; the United

States Treasury; the US Military; the US Supreme Court; the World Court; the IMF; the World Bank; the Iraq

government; a number of other foreign governments; and the numerous banks involved, among many others.

After decades of slow but steady progress, no one who has worked so tirelessly on behalf of the people of the

Earth desires to see their hard fought efforts sabotaged at this late stage of the game. No one, that is, except

for the ever-shrinking cabal opposition.

Apparently, the Chinese elders have insisted there be a total restoration of the Republic in the US when the

new asset-backed, Basel III financial system is implemented, to

ensure it will be completely safe and secure. Otherwise, chaos could be unleashed by an evil cabal who is

hellbent on taking the whole world down with them.

The Chinese have long held a reputation for being extremely thorough and infinitely patient. They are unwilling

to risk anything without the necessary safeguards firmly in place. Therefore, it is highly likely we may see a

Restoration of the Republic go hand-in-hand with the Global Currency Reset. Believe it or not.

APPEARANCES CAN BE DECEIVING

Many may also be wondering why would all of these global institutions be co-operating now to allow a new

asset-backed economic system to be installed after benefiting so richly from the old corrupt debt-based

system?

The answer to that question is two-fold:

1) Realize this has been a long and drawn out struggle. Decades and decades of groundwork has been laid out

through the legal route and by sheer force which has backed the cabal into a very tight corner they can no

longer remove themselves from, despite all their futile efforts. In addition, their source of funds used to finance

all their dirty deeds has been systematically cut off, one by one.

2) Despite the nefarious reputations of many of these global institutions –– most particularly the major banks ––

it is important not to paint them all with a broad brush. There are white knights or white hats strategically placed

throughout every one of these establishments who are working in secret from the inside to turn them around.

While still many others serving within the ranks of the cabal have been offered deals they simply cannot refuse,

ie: long jail sentences, bankruptcy, and/or something far worse.

In other words, we have arrived at check mate time. Game over.

Along with security, two other key words are clearly defining these times we are living in –– transparency and

disclosure. What we are now seeing is the same old nasty tricks which used to work so well in the old days, no

longer do because the people of the world are waking up. And as they wake up, they are saying ––  enough is

enough.

And we can clearly see across the planet, from far and wide, people are waking up in droves. They are

standing up to be counted through protests; demonstrations; Occupy Wall Street; the Arab Spring; Egypt;

Greece; Brazil; Spain; alternative media; blogs; social networks; and on and on. And they are shouting it out to

anyone who can hear them  –– "we have had enough of the corruption, lies and greed." The time has come to

change the rules of the game.

The new Basel III banking system is preparing the world for a totally transparent global economy built upon

real, tangible assets. No more stashing trillions of ill-gotten gains away in some secret Swiss, Vatican Bank or

offshore accounts. No more black budgets where other untold trillions are funneled down black holes to finance

unending black operations. No more nuclear threats, no more war on terror, no more using warfare for global

conquest.

When the button for Global Currency Reset is finally pushed, our world will never, ever be the same again.

Trillions upon trillions of fraudulent debt will be instantly wiped off the books. Massive amounts of money will

flow through the World Global Settlements to repay countries who have been robbed blind by the international

banking cartel, including the US. And still more multiple billions will finally be made available to underwrite

massive global humanitarian projects. What is waiting in the wings ready to be distributed to humanity is truly

staggering.

Once the parasites are fully removed from the system, which has been ongoing for years and has picked up

momentum this year and last, we will see the floodgates open to a bountiful number of changes.

If you knew the amount of planning, preparation and strategy which has gone into rescuing the world from a

total take-down, it would boggle your mind. Programs such as Global Currency Reset, the World Global

Settlements, the Global Collateral Accounts, NESARA and more were not some sort of random idea or initiative

somebody thought up a few years ago. Rather, they have been part of an overall grand scheme in the works

since the end of World War II to restore complete sovereignty and peace to a chaotic planet and human race in

crisis.

Anyone with a conscious and a heart, can easily see the world is in trouble. Big trouble. There are far too many

people living in poverty and misery and the world is drowning in a sea of debt. People are demanding sweeping

changes to the system. Yet we must realize, nearly all of humanity's profound problems we see right now can

be quite easily solved as long as there is a will. And, the good news is –– that will has been found. And soon

you will see it and find it within you too!

THE FOUNDING FATHERS RISE AGAIN

It only takes a very small percentage of dedicated, passionate people to a have a great effect upon the world.

Remember, during the Revolutionary War in the American colonies in the late 1700's only 3% of the population

actually entered into the conflict and only 10% actively support the 3%. Yet the outcome effected every single

person in America and untold future generations of people still to be born. And it became a global phenomenon

blazing in the hearts of those who longed for the ideals of freedom.

Our Founding Fathers who drafted the brilliant documents known as the Declaration of Independence, the Bill

of Rights and finally the US Constitution, were some of the most illustrious men who have ever lived, not only in

this country, but anywhere in the world. And their great work is about to be reborn yet again. Yes, it is time for

an encore!

Some of these men were mere simple farmers, doctors and statesmen yet they came together in an almost

Divinely-inspired mission to lead their country out of the depths of bondage to create a new nation which

became a beacon of light to the world. Many paid with their lives but their sacrifices were not in vain. The nation

which they founded was the united states for America ––  a republic, not a democracy, as the media and

educational system would have you believe.

Since the war of 1812, there has been an all-out assault on our country by the international banking cartel to

steal the hard fought freedoms and values established by the Founding Fathers. The British Crown never gave

up their desire to rule over America and eventually they succeeded by controlling our money supply through the

City of London bankers, the Federal Reserve, in cahoots with the Vatican and numerous Popes.

Forget about all the phony baloney you have read about in the history books ––  "history is written by the

winners," it has often been said. All wars are about money. Nearly all political assassinations such as Abraham

Lincoln, JFK, RFK, MLK, etc. were about controlling the supply of money and maintaining absolute power.

You have been told a pack of lies about your history. Now is the time to begin to know the true heritage on

planet Earth and its people.

Soon you are going to learn of the many brave men and women who have put their lives on the line once more

to save the world from total annihilation to bring us to the point of emancipation. You will learn about completely

anonymous people who have worked tirelessly behind the scenes and have never received any kind of

recognition, whatsoever.

Some of these great people have long since passed away. Some have passed away only recently. But

eventually, all will be remembered and duly honored for their service to not only the US, but the entire human

race. Still others may simply prefer to remain completely unknown, their selfless acts of heroism to be forever

silent and unacknowledged.

THE END IS JUST THE BEGINNING

Make no mistake about it, the proverbial genie is out of the bottle. And all the kings horses and all the kings

men will never be able to put him back in again.

With the adoption of the Basel III accords by the Federal Reserve, the FDIC and the Office of the Comptroller;

with the impending reimplementation of the gold standard and the very vital Glass-Steagall Act; with the

introduction of new money in October and rebirth of the US Treasury, all the pieces are falling into place.

Combined those major steps with the intense negotiations ongoing between the US and China and the swift

action underway in Iraq, then we can truly say we are nearly set to light the fuse. Victory is within our grasp.

Have faith all is unfolding in perfect order. Do not buy into the fear-mongering mainstream news headlines.

Many of the more controversial news stories of the day are now being quickly exposed as fake or propaganda,

or at the very least, completely baseless.

The news media is an integral part of maintaining the illusion and they can no longer keep up the facade. Their

days as gatekeepers of the flow of information are numbered as the Restoration of the Republic begins to

unfurl.

Do not misjudge a world uniting as one to stand in resistance to a wicked force such as the New World Order

as somehow a part of the problem. Amazing alliances have been formed which have never existed before. The

human family is coming together in order to create a new Earth, and a new Heaven. A true Golden Age for one

and all. We are all in this together.

You may be shocked to ultimately learn we are all connected, we are all a part of the same whole. A part of

God. A part of the Divine Creator.

Appreciate what has happened thus far and not frustrated with what has not.

Remember the immortal words of the late John F. Kennedy –– ask not what your country can do for you, ask

what you can do for your country.

Each and every day we move ever closer towards our freedom. Each and every hour our world is transforming.

And each and every moment we are discovering the power which lies deep within us.

And through all the struggles, all the trials and all the tribulations we are witnessing the fulfillment of the great

prophecy –– and the meek shall inherit the Earth.