Gold, silver boosted by physical demand,
report about Federal Reserve
NEW YORK (Commodity Online): Comex gold was higher as the pit session ended. "Gold has found support between $1,670 and $1,675, this level having been tested many times today," said Triland Metals in a research note.
"Asian physical demand had helped underpin the market." Further, support came from a Wall Street Journal report saying that the Federal Reserve was considering "sterilized" bond purchases, which induced short covering in gold, Triland added.
Gold correction may be nearing,
although market still hostage to Greece: HSBC
LONDON (Commodity Online): Gold prices may be near the end of a downward correction, although the metal’s fortunes could still hinge on Greece for a while yet, HSBC said in a research note.
According to HSBC, prices tumbled Tuesday as renewed worries about the Greek debt situation prompted a flight out of risk assets, including equities, and weakened the euro.
If Ft. Knox Isn't Empty
Sell the gold to Americans at $42.22 an ounce Loaded Guns and an Empty Fort Knox
by Gary North - LewRockwell.com
All guns are loaded. Never forget this.
I never knew my great uncle Gerald. That's because he was killed in an accident. His son shot him.
Uncle Gerald was a hunter in Oregon. He had taught his son to regard every gun as loaded. He always was careful to unload his gun whenever he came in from hunting. But one day he forgot. His son, knowing that his father was meticulous about such things, for some reason pulled the trigger.
In my household, I was taught that every gun is loaded until it is examined to see if it is unloaded. This is the #1 rule for gun safety.
The reverse rule applies to every warehouse. Every officially full warehouse is empty until it is shown to be full. This is #1 rule for storage safety.
FORT KNOX IS EMPTY
Gold Bulls Strengthening
as Bullion Wagers Reach $131 Billion: Commodities
By Maria Kolesnikova and Nicholas Larkin - Bloomberg.com
Gold traders are the most bullish in four months after investors accumulated more metal than ever and hedge funds raised bets on gains to a five-month high.
Sixteen of 23 analysts surveyed by Bloomberg expect prices to gain next week and one was neutral, the highest proportion since Nov. 11. Investors increased their holdings in exchange- traded products backed by bullion for seven consecutive weeks and now hold 2,407 metric tons valued at $131 billion, data compiled by Bloomberg show.
Switzerland Wants Its Gold Back From The New York Fed
Submitted by Tyler Durden - ZeroHedge.com
Earlier today, we reported that Germans are increasingly concerned that their gold, at over 3,400 tons a majority of which is likely stored in the vault 80 feet below street level of 33 Liberty (recently purchased by the Fed with freshly printed money at far higher than prevailing commercial real estate rates for the Downtown NY area), may be in jeopardy,and will likely soon formally inquire just how much of said gold is really held by the Fed. As it turns out, Germany is not alone: as part of the "Rettet Unser Schweizer Gold", or the “Gold Initiative”: A Swiss Initiative to Secure the Swiss National Bank’s Gold Reserves initiative, launched recently by four members of the Swiss parliament, the Swiss people should have a right to vote on 3 simple things:...
Full disclosure via the Initiative's website: http://www.goldinitiative.ch
Dollar at a Critical Juncture
BY JUSTIN SMYTH - FinancialSense.com
As we go through the first significant pullback in the market for 2012, the dollar seems to be at a turning point that should influence market trends for the next few months. Going all the way back to 2002, there has been a strong inverse correlation between stocks and commodities, and the U.S. dollar. For the most part, the dollar has been falling during this period, which has helped drive cyclical bull markets in stocks and commodities. More recently, the stock market panic of 2008 and the first Euro crisis of 2010 drove significant countertrend rallies in the dollar, and corrections in stocks and commodities.
Most Arabs support unified currency
and see US and Israel as biggest threats: Survey
NEW YORK (Commodity Online): Majority of people in the Arab world support the idea of a unified Arab currency and military forces while also viewing the US and Israel as the two biggest threat to the region, as per the Arab Opinion Index report published by the Arab Center for Research and Policy Studies (ACRPS).
The index report is the largest of its kind, covering 12 countries and 85% of the people of the Arab world and compiling the findings of 16,173 face-to-face interviews.
North Dakota oil production hits record, again, in January Output increase apace of last year's big increaseNorth Dakota's crude oil production continues to increase steadily, keeping pace with last year's big gains.
By: Stephen J. Lee, Grand Forks Herald
North Dakota's crude oil production continues to increase steadily, keeping pace with last year's big gains.
According to the latest figures released today by the Department of Mineral Resources Oil and Gas Division, in January daily oil production rose to a record 546,000 barrels of oil per day, up 11,000 barrels from December's daily output.
Legal skull-duggery in Greece may doom Portugal Europe has ring-fenced Greece's debt crisis for now but its escalating recourse to legal legerdemain has shattered the trust of global bond markets and may ultimately expose Portugal, Spain, and Italy to greater danger.
By Ambrose Evans-Pritchard - Telegraph.co.uk
"The rule of law has been treated with contempt," said Marc Ostwald from Monument Securities. "This will lead to litigation for the next ten years. It has become a massive impediment for long-term investors, and people will now be very wary about Portugal."
At the start of the crisis EU leaders declared it unthinkable that any eurozone state should require debt relief, let alone default. Each pledge was breached, and the haircut imposed on banks, insurers, and pension funds ratcheted up to 75pc.
Investors Agree to Swap About 85% of Greek Debt
By Christos Ziotis and Maria Petrakis - Bloomberg.com
Private investors agreed to swap about 85 percent of their Greek government bonds for new securities in the biggest sovereign debt restructuring in history, according to a banker briefed on the results.
Preliminary indications showed that as much as 155 billion euros ($205 billion) of the 177 billion euros of Greek-law bonds were offered, said the banker, who declined to be identified. Twelve billion euros of debt not under Greek law was also tendered, as was 7 billion euros of bonds from state-owned companies guaranteed by the government, the banker said.
German newspaper says 'nein' to Greek bond haircut Germany's Bild newspaper says 'nein' to Greek bond haircut
Germans are famous for their mullet haircuts. So no wonder the nation's Bild newspaper is bristling at the No1 variety being meted out by the Greek government.
By Alistair Osborne - Telegraph.co.uk
The tabloid, with 12m German readers, bought €10,000 (£8,350) of Greek debt in the secondary bond market back in December – at a knock-down €4,815.
On Wednesday it declared it was saying "Nein" to the Greek debt swap, which is trying to force the holders of €206bn of bonds to accept a trimming of about 75pc.
Stark slams ECB's 'shocking' balance sheet Germany's monetary doyen slams ECB's 'shocking' balance sheet
The doyen of German monetarism has denounced the stimulus policies of the European Central Bank as a dangerous leap into the unknown, giving voice to growing misgivings among the German policy elite.
By Ambrose Evans-Pritchard - Telegraph.co.uk
Jurgen Stark, the ECB's former chief economist and Germany's board member until two months ago, said the blitz of lending had corrupted collateral standards and risked inflation.
"The balance sheet of the euro system isn't just gigantic in size but also shocking in quality," he said.
Unlimited lending to banks for three years has pushed the ECB's balance sheet to over €3 trillion (£2.5 trillion), overtaking the US Federal Reserve to become the world's most activist bank.
The Fed's latest plan to boost the economy
By Mark Thoma - CBSNews.com
(MoneyWatch) The economy is recovering and the Fed has policy on hold for the moment, but if further action is needed in coming months the central bank is discussingwhat to do. The most likely course of action is a new bond purchase plan similar to the "Operation Twist" policy that was launched in September and ends this coming June.
One thing that is clear from the latest discussion is that some members of the Fed are very worried about inflation. This is evident in the design of the bond purchase plan which mimics a key feature of the Fed's $400 billion Operation Twist policy. Under Operation Twist, the Fed essentially removes long-term securities from the private sector and replaces them with short-term securities of equal value. Thus, this operation does not change the money supply, and hence does not change inflationary pressure.
US Budget Deficit Hits All Time High In February
Submitted by Tyler Durden - ZeroHedge.com
For a global economy that is "improving" we sure are getting a whole lot of records in the won't direction in the last two days. Yesterday it was Japan which printed a record current account deficit (yes, the most indebted country in the world was once upon a time supposed to exportits way out of debt). Today, we learn that in February the US will report its largest budget deficit in history, as the Keynesian floodgates open full bore, and as Zero Hedge has noted repeatedly, tax revenues just refuse to come in at anything close to the pace of accelerated spending, forcing the US to borrow 54 cents for every dollar it spends (not the often cited 42 cent number which does not take into account tax refunds - see here). We would comment more on this, but frankly the chart speaks for itself. And now that the US has to fund an additional $100 billion due to the taxcut extension this means that things are only going to get worse, fast.
Not So Fast On That Whole Economic Recovery Thing
By Michael Snyder - TheEconomicCollapseBlog.com
Not so fast. Those that are publicly declaring that an economic recovery has arrived are ignoring a whole host of numbers that indicate that the U.S. economy is in absolutely horrendous shape. The truth is that the health of an economy should not be measured by how well the stock market is doing. Rather, the truth health of an economy should be evaluated by looking at numbers for things like jobs, housing, poverty and debt. Some of the latest economic statistics indicate that unemployment is getting a little bit worse, that the housing market continues to deteriorate, that poverty in America continues to soar and that our debt problem is worse than ever. If we were truly experiencing the kind of economic recovery that the United States has experienced after every other post-World War II recession we would see a sharp improvement across the board in most of our economic statistics. But that simply is not happening. Sadly, this is about as much of an "economic recovery" as we are going to get because soon the economy will be getting much worse. So enjoy this period of relative stability while you can.
Keiser Report: Sharkboy & Lava Girl (E259)
In this episode, Max Keiser and co-host, Stacy Herbert, discuss boating accidents with Sharkboy and Lava Girl and a futures market to lay off your Blythe Masters risk. In the second half of the show, Max talks to Dr. Michael Hudson about Modern Monetary Theory at the University of Missouri - Kansas City and about the Chicago Boys gutting the economic competition, literally.
How does an America with no middle class look like? Bureau of Labor and Statistics projects top two jobs for the next decade will pay roughly $20,000 a year. Approval rating of Congress at 10 percent. In comparison, Americans approved of BP’s handling of the Gulf oil crisis at a 16 percent rate.
by MyBudget360
A strong middle class has been at the core of what has been promoted as the American Dream. How would America look like if the middle class simply vanished? We may not need to wait too long at the current rate since we are quickly siphoning people off the middle class and throwing them into lower income brackets. The vast majority of Americans do not buy into the propaganda promoted on the tightly controlled media outlets. In fact, the latest Congressional job approval numbers are at a record low of 10 percent according to Gallup. To put this low figure in perspective 16 percent of Americans approved of how BP handled the catastrophic Gulf oil spill at the peak of the blowout. This low Congressional approval is all coming during a supposed economic recovery where 46,000,000 Americans receive a monthly charge to their debit card for food assistance. Even government figures show the big job growth sectors of the next decade to be in low paying fields. What would America look like without a middle class?
The US Deleveraging Is Now Over The credit bubble is now officially back.
Submitted by Tyler Durden - ZeroHedge.com
Today the Fed released its quarterly Flow of Funds report, also known as the Z.1., which is mostly tracked to show quarterly changes in consumer net worth (and which we find far more valuable to show changes in shadow banking liabilities - more in that in a later post). So while in Q4 household net worth did increase by $1.2 trillion to $58.5 trillion, all of this change, and then some, was purely driven by the central bank induced ramp in the stock market: $1.3 trillion of the $1.2 trillion increase in Net Worth was from the change of value in equity shares at market value which at December 31 was $17.3 trillion. In other words, the illusion of wealth is and continues to be merely a iCTRL+P keystroke away.
FAA forecast: High air fares most of this decade
By Joan Lowy-Associated Press - WashingtonTimes.com
WASHINGTON — Air fares are likely to stay high throughout this decade, as passenger travel grows but airline capacity shrinks, according to a government forecast issued Thursday.
In its annual economic analysis, the Federal Aviation Administration said travelers won’t get much relief until airlines start getting more competition, which is years off. The FAApredicted that more airline mergers and consolidation will shrink the number of cities served and the number of flights available in the nation’s air travel network.
High-Frequency Trading: Menger vs. Walras
Mises Daily: by John Paul Koning
While Carl Menger and Léon Walras simultaneously discovered the principle of marginal utility, their ideas about the nature of market prices are very different. Walras was more interested in the final equilibrium prices arrived at by traders than the process by which these prices were formed. Therefore, he dramatically simplified the pricing process by imagining it as if it were governed by an auction mechanism capable of instantly calculating all prices in an economy.
For his part, Menger was fascinated with the actual process by which prices are formed. Rather than trying to abstract from the messy process of haggling by devising an artificial auction mechanism, Menger worked with a number of real-life pricing scenarios including isolated bargaining, monopoly, and competitive exchange.
Obama unveils new foreclosure measures
to resuscitate housing market
By Zachary A. Goldfarb - WashingtonPost.com
President Obama has begun embracing housing policies that administration officials earlier thought unwise or unworkable as he embarks on his most aggressive push to address the nation’s foreclosure crisis and depressed real estate market since the first months of his tenure.
Obama has unveiled more than half a dozen plans in recent months to help millions more Americans refinance their mortgages at low rates, to reduce the debts owed by struggling homeowners and to expand existing programs to broaden the pool of borrowers eligible for government aid. The latest initiatives, announced this week, seek to help members of the military and Americans who have government-insured mortgages.
The FBI, The CIA, Homeland Security, The Federal Reserve And Potential Employers Are All Monitoring You On Facebook And Twitter
By Michael Snyder - EndOfTheAmericanDream.com
Why is there such a sudden obsession with monitoring what average Americans are saying on Facebook and Twitter? To be honest, the vast majority of what is being said on Facebook and Twitter is simply not worth reading even if you could understand it. But for the FBI, the CIA, the Department of Homeland Security and the Federal Reserve, Facebook and Twitter represent a treasure trove of intelligence information. Tens of millions of us have compiled incredibly detailed dossiers on ourselves and have put them out there for the entire world to see. Since the information is public, the various alphabet agencies of the federal government see no problem with scooping up all of that information and using it for their own purposes. Many potential employers have also discovered that Facebook and Twitter can tell them an awful lot about potential employees. Social media creates a permanent record that reflects who you are and what you believe, and many Americans are finding out that all of this information can come back and haunt them in a big way. In the world in which we now live, privacy is becoming a thing of the past, and we all need to be mindful of the things that we are exposing to the public.
Can the President Kill You?
by Andrew P. Napolitano - LewRockwell.com
Can the president kill an American simply because the person is dangerous and his arrest would be impractical? Can the president be judge, jury and executioner of an American in a foreign country because he believes that would keep America safe? Can Congress authorize the president to do this?
Earlier this week, U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder attempted to justify presidential killing in a speech at Northwestern University law school. In it, he recognized the requirement of the Fifth Amendment for due process. He argued that the president may substitute the traditionally understood due process – a public jury trial – with the president's own novel version of it; that would be a secret deliberation about killing. Without mentioning the name of the American the president recently ordered killed, Holder suggested that the president's careful consideration of the case of New Mexico-born Anwar al-Awlaki constituted a substituted form of due process.
Nullify the NDAA!
Tom Woods, the New York Times bestselling author of Nullification and ten other books, discusses state efforts to defang the NDAA, which remains dangerous despite the president's apparent retreat.
We need a: Protect America from Congress Act
By Marti Oakley - The PPJ Gazette
I believe it is time that we, the public, wrote our own legislation and called it The Protect America from Congress Act (PACA). In light of all the legislation that has been passed by both Democrats and Republicans in the last 14 years, most of which flies in the face of the Constitution and civil rights we need to act to defend ourselves from what is obviously the greatest threat we face as a nation. The onslaught of unconstitutional pieces of legislation that have cost us our freedom, privacy and liberty is a clear indicator that our greatest enemy is housed in the District of Criminals.
Senate backs Obama in pipeline rejection
By Stephen Dinan-The Washington Times
Democratic senators voted Thursday to ratify President Obama’s decision to reject theKeystone XL pipeline, leaving the project in limbo but ensuring it remains a political issue through this year’s elections.
Mr. Obama personally lobbied Democrats to support his decision, and was rewarded when 42 of them sided with him — enough to sustain a filibuster against a GOP-led effort to undo the president’s rejection.
Pelosi says Keystone might be 'worthy'
but won't cut prices at the pump
By Mike Lillis - TheHill.com
House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi said Thursday that the Keystone XL oil sands pipeline might be a "worthy" project, but it won't ease prices at the pump.
The remarks are the first hint that the California Democrat might see merits in the controversial pipeline, which many liberal Democrats say will ravage the environment.
Many Obama donors get administration jobs The Influence Industry:
Obama gives administration jobs to some big fundraisers
By T.W. Farnam - WashingtonPost.com
Big donors considering whether to work the phones raising money for President Obama’s reelection campaign might consider the fate of his 2008 bundlers. Many of them, it turns out, won plum jobs in his administration.
Obama campaigned on what he called "the most sweeping ethics reform in history" and has frequently criticized the role of money in politics. That hasn’t stopped him from offering government jobs to some of his biggest bundlers, volunteer fundraisers who gather political contributions from other rich donors.
What's Really Making Us Fat? It may not be as simple as calories in, calories out. New research reveals a far more complex equation for weight gain that places at least some of the blame on organic pollutants.
By Kristin Wartman - TheAtlantic.com
Conventional wisdom says that weight gain or loss is based on the energy balance model of "calories in, calories out," which is often reduced to the simple refrain, "eat less, and exercise more." But new research reveals a far more complex equation that appears to rest on several other important factors affecting weight gain. Researchers in a relatively new field are looking at the role of industrial chemicals and non-caloric aspects of foods -- called obesogens -- in weight gain. Scientists conducting this research believe that these substances that are now prevalent in our food supply may be altering the way our bodies store fat and regulate our metabolism. But not everyone agrees. Many scientists, nutritionists, and doctors are still firm believers in the energy balance model. A debate has ensued, leaving a rather unclear picture as to what's really at work behind our nation's spike in obesity.
Charles Koch: I Am Not Backing Down
Posted by Lew Rockwell on March 8, 2012 06:21 PM Statement by Charles G. Koch Regarding the Cato Institute
March 8, 2012
In December 1976, when I co-founded and provided the seed money to establish the Cato Institute, which originally was the Charles Koch Foundation, my vision was to build a principled and non-partisan organization that would advance the ideas that enable all people to prosper — by promoting individual liberty, limited government, free markets and peace. This was my intent then, and remains my steadfast intent 35 years later.
With its emphasis on education, Cato has contributed greatly to the marketplace of ideas and is now a respected thought leader. My brother David and I have every intent to ensure Cato continues its work on the full spectrum of libertarian issues for which it has become known.
I am troubled by recent false allegations that our actions to preserve shareholder rights were done in disregard of Cato's interests. Here are the facts behind what we have done and why.
MIT Prof: The Kochs Will Not Takeover the World
by Robert Wenzel - EconomicPolicyJournal.com
Well this is a relief. Simon Johnson writes in NYT:
In the new Bloomberg billionaire index, released this week, the Koch brothers are each worth $33.5 billion. If they choose to act together, as they often seem to, including in the case of Cato, they are the richest pair in the world.
Professor Acemoglu is concerned about the Kochs’ well-organized attempts to exert sway over American politics (e.g., through Americans for Prosperity and its affiliated organizations). But he feels that American democracy is sufficiently strong and will prevail. If he is right, the Koch brothers are unlikely to end up calling the shots as corporate titans did in the Gilded Age at the end of the 19th century.
How good is the Kochs' case in the Cato flap?
Alison Frankel, Reporting by Erin Geiger Smith - ThomasReuters.com
By now you've probably heard that the billionaire, Tea Party-funding Koch brothers are attempting to regain control of Cato Institute, the non-profit libertarian think tank Charles Koch cofounded in 1974. The Koch v. Cato kerfuffle has generated so much heat that we decided to take a close look at the legal argument underpinning the takeover attempt.
More Details on the Increasingly Bitter
Koch/Cato Lawsuit and Feud
By Matt Welch - Reason.com
As mentioned here last week, controversial libertarian philanthropists Charles and David Koch are suing the country's largest libertarian think tank, the Cato Institute, in a dispute over ownership shares. Cato PresidentEd Crane, who is one of the defendants, has described the suit as an attempted "hostile takeover," an "effort by the Kochs to turn the Cato Institute into some sort of auxiliary for the G.O.P"; the Kochscounter that they intend no such takeover and are instead fighting for the sanctity of contract and rule of law.
The Koch Brothers, The Cato Institute, And Why Nations Fail
By Simon Johnson - BaselineScenario.com
A dispute has broken out between the Cato Institute, a leading libertarian think tank, and two of its longtime backers – David and Charles Koch. The institute is not the usual form of nonprofit but actually a company with shares; the Koch brothers own two of the four shares and are arguing that they have the right to acquire additional shares and thus presumably exert more control. The institute and some of its senior staff are pushing back.
Why Congress May Be Done for the Year It's not even spring yet, but with the elections looming, the House and Senate may already have done everything they will do in 2012.
By Linda Killian - TheAtlantic.com
The American people think Congress is broken and judging by its track record that assessment is accurate.
The average House and Senate member now sides with their party about 90 percent of the time, according to a recent Congressional Quarterly study, a level of lockstep agreement that reflects the most profound partisan polarization in Congress in 100 years. Now, with Democrats trying to hold onto their majority in the Senate and Republicans trying to win it as the election draws closer, the chance that legislative comity might improve is close to vanishing.
Inside that new anti-Occupy bill HR 347 is drawing fire -- but many of its shameful restrictions already exist
BY NATASHA LENNARD - Salon.com
In recent days, there has been a considerable amount of online speculation over a bill that made its way through the House and the Senate last week with little opposition — HR 347, or the Federal Restricted Buildings and Grounds Improvement Act of 2011. Some have decried it as specifically anti-Occupy legislation with the aim to further curtail First Amendment rights. HR 347 makes it a prosecutable offense to knowingly, and without lawful authority, enter "(1) the White House or its grounds or the Vice President’s official residence or its grounds, (2) a building or grounds where the President or other person protected by the Secret Service is or will be temporarily visiting, or (3) a building or grounds so restricted due to a special event of national significance."
U.S. forces vulnerable to Chinese cyberattack
By Shaun Waterman-The Washington Times
In a future war with the United States, China likely would first use cyberweapons to attack computer networks of U.S. forces in the Pacific rather than strike with conventional arms, according to a congressional report Thursday.
The cyberattacks would aim to disrupt the electronic systems on which U.S. Pacific Command relies for communications, command and resupply, impeding its ability to fight back against the People’s Liberation Army (PLA), says a report for the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission.
Pentagon tries to sell skeptical Congress
on new rounds of base closures
By Jeremy Herb - TheHill.com
Facing a hostile crowd in Congress, Pentagon officials Thursday tried to make the case that lawmakers need to accept more base closures as important medicine to cure Defense budget problems.
Dorothy Robyn, deputy under secretary of Defense for installations and environment, appearing at a subcommittee hearing on the defense budget, tried to rebut the frequent arguments made in Congress against two new rounds of closures prescribed by the Base Realignment and Closure Commission. Congress has expressed wide bipartisan opposition to BRAC in this year’s budget hearings.
Clinton: There's still space for talks to tackle Iran nuclear issue In joint press conference with Libyan PM, U.S. Secretary of State says world powers responded positively to Iranian missive regarding renewed nuclear talks expecting 'openness and transparency.'
By Natasha Mozgovaya - Haaretz.com
There's still space for diplomacy in the attempts to resolve Iran's nuclear standoff with the West, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said on Thursday, adding that Iran has to prove that its nuclear program is peaceful.
Speaking in a joint press conference with Libyan Prime Minisnter Abdurrahim ElKeib, Clinton said that, as U.S. President Barack Obama said, "we continue to believe we have space for diplomacy."
The Coming Arab Identity Crisis The Arab Spring could renew Nasser's 60-year-old mission for pan-Arabism, but the movement would face new challenges today.
By Massoud Hayoun - TheAtlantic.com
Just after the 18-day uprising in Tahrir Square ousted President Hosni Mubarak, a Cairene businessman living in Hong Kong told me in rapturous excitement, "Now that we are freeing ourselves from dictators, all we need is to unify. One currency like the E.U., a common goal of economic development, and integrity for our Arab world."
He was not the first Arab idealist to envision pan-Arab unification as a legitimate goal. In 1960, at the height of Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser's Pan-Arabist, socialist movement, Egyptian musical iconMohammed Abdel Wahab composed Watani al Akbar (in English, My Grand Nation), an ode to the idea of a united Arab super-state that would stretch from Morocco to Iraq. Many of the greatest singers of the Arab world came together on the same stage for the performance.
Celente: Hawks circling over Iran as only ally Syria on ropes
The White House may be claiming it wants a diplomatic solution in Syria, but it seems it may not have faith in its own convictions.The Pentagon has been ordered to review its potential options.
Gerald Celente, publisher of the Trends Journal talks to RT, claiming Washington might be contemplating a military operation, because bringing down the Syrian regime would weaken Iran.
Syrian rebels reject Annan's call for dialogue with Assad In Damascus, authorities continued to crack down on Assad opponents, with government forces shooting and wounding three mourners at a funeral.
By Reuters - Haaretz.com
Kofi Annan, the UN-Arab League envoy to Syria, said he would urge President Bashar Assad and his foes to stop fighting and seek a political solution, drawing angry rebukes from dissidents.
"The killing has to stop and we need to find a way of putting in the appropriate reforms and moving forward," Annan said on Thursday in Cairo ahead of his trip to Damascus on Saturday.
It's 10 Minutes to Midnight: Introducing The Iran War Clock
By Dominic Tierney - TheAtlantic.com
War or peace in the Middle East amounts to a coin toss. The probability that the United States or Israel will strike Iran in the next year is 48 percent according to a new project that predicts the chances of conflict--the Iran War Clock. And as a result, the clock is set to 10 minutes to midnight.
How does the Iran War Clock work?
War with Iran is not inevitable, says Netanyahu Israeli PM warns Iran has 'bamboozled the west' and that only military threat will deter Tehran from developing nuclear weapon
By Chris McGreal in Washington - Guardian.co.uk
Binyamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, has said that an attack on Iran's nuclear facilities is not inevitable. But he claimed it is the threat of military action, not sanctions, that will deter Tehran from developing an atomic bomb.
Following his White House meeting with Barack Obama this week, Netanyahu differed with the president over the value of diplomacy and was sceptical about a fresh round of talks between Tehran and the major powers, telling Fox News that Iran has "bamboozled the west".
War: Big Government's Best Friend
Bestselling author Tom Woods speaks at the Mises Institute's seminar at Furman University, "War: Big Government's Best Friend." Sponsored by the Conservative Students for a Better Tomorrow.
Netanyahu: Strike of Iran's nuclear facilities
possible within months Prime minister says he prefers diplomatic pressure stop the Iranian nuclear program and war be avoided.
By Jonathan Lis - Haaretz.com
An attack on Iran could take place within a matter of months, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in a series of television interviews on Thursday.
"We're not standing with a stopwatch in hand," he said. "It's not a matter of days or weeks, but also not of years. The result must be removal of the threat of nuclear weapons in Iran's hands."
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