Baltic Dry Index. 988 -22
LIR Gold Target in 2019: $30,000. Revised due to QE programs.
Politics
is not an exact science.
Count
Otto von Bismarck.
This morning
it’s “Mission Accomplished.” Accomplished that is for Russia and China. In yet
more fallout from America’s disastrous botched coup in Kiev, so far America has
managed to give back the Crimea to Russia, driven Russia and China to complete
a long stalled natural gas deal, blown up Japan’s attempted rapprochement with
Russia attempting to split China and Russia apart, put Continental Europe on a
course to commit economic suicide, by attempting to switch from cheap Russian
energy to much more expensive LNG, and best of all from a Russian perspective, transferred
the cost of subsidising the Ukraine, the thoroughly corrupt, oligarch basket
case of Europe, from Russia onto the EU and America. In further collateral
damage, Russia and China will step up the use of each other’s currency cutting
out the dollar. Who are these Russian’s who work so successfully in Washington
for Russia?
The only
eventual upside for continental Europe, once Russian gas is actually flowing
into China, the price of LNG might drop as the extra supply weighs on the
market. Unfortunately for continental Europe, that is about four to five years
away. I suspect that the one day signing delay, might have been an attempt by
some to profit from the one day drop and following surge in the Gazprom share
price.
Below, “Mission
Accomplished.”
I trust no one, not even myself.
President Obama, with apologies to Joseph Stalin.
China and Russia sign 30 year gas deal
CCTV.com 05-22-2014 06:51 BJT
China and Russia have signed a
long-awaited gas deal worth more than US$400 billion, ending a decade of
natural gas supply talks between the two countries.Two documents and a
memorandum were signed at a ceremony in Shanghai attended by Chinese President
Xi Jinping and Russian President Vladimir Putin.
According to a bulletin on the China
National Petroleum Corporation’s website, the contract will come into effect in
2018. A new pipeline will provide China with 38 billion cubic meters of natural
gas per year. The deal comes the day after the two leaders issued a joint
statement that said that the two countries would "establish a
comprehensive energy cooperation partnership.
Putin Tilts to Asia With $400 Billion China Gas Deal
May 21, 2014 9:00 PM GMT
Russia’s $400 billion deal
to supply natural gas to China after more than a decade of negotiations is
tilting the world’s largest energy exporter toward Asia as ties worsen with the
U.S. and Europe. Russian President Vladimir Putin is turning eastward as sanctions imposed by the U.S. and the European Union because of the standoff over Ukraine batter the Russian economy. The increasing alienation makes trade with China, the country’s largest trading partner after the two-way volume surged sevenfold in the past decade to about $94 billion last year, even more important.
----Putin yesterday in Shanghai called the signing an “epochal event.” While the price wasn’t disclosed, he said its satisfies both countries. The deal to supply gas through a new pipeline was completed after a decade of negotiations, mostly because of a disagreement over the price.
The ruble strengthened 0.3 percent to 34.415 per dollar by 7:39 p.m. in Moscow, gaining for a third day. OAO Gazprom (GAZP) shares advanced 0.8 percent to 146.58 rubles.
---- Gazprom Chief Executive Officer Alexey Miller signed the deal with Zhou Jiping, chairman of China National Petroleum Corp. The agreement is for 38 billion cubic meters of gas annually over 30 years, or about 20 percent of its sales to Europe, Miller said. While he declined to give a price, he said the total value would be about $400 billion.
“This is the largest ever
contract for Gazprom,” Miller said, adding the deal was clinched at 4 a.m.
Shipments will start in four to six years, he said.
---- China may make as much as $25 billion in advance payments under the contract to invest in the necessary infrastructure, Russian Energy Minister Alexander Novak told reporters yesterday. The government in Beijing, responsible for a pipeline on its territory, will spend at least $20 billion on its construction, Putin said.
Russia and China will start talks on a second pipeline to the west of the initial route, Miller said.
More
Cold War Return Leaves Abe’s Russia Strategy in Tatters
May 21,
2014 4:00 PM GMT
Japan’s escalating tensions with China in recent years spurred Prime Minister Shinzo Abe to
resolve decades-old differences with another neighbor -- Russia. Just as
those efforts offered promise, the Crimea crisis hit. Now, Abe is backing U.S.-led efforts to punish Russia and President Vladimir Putin is tightening ties with China, with the two nations this week mounting their first joint naval drills near Japan-controlled islands that are at the center of the Chinese-Japanese rift. With a warning against other nations’ planes or ships entering the exercise zone, the budding Russia-China relationship poses fresh challenges to Abe.
The prime minister is the first Japanese leader in a decade to make an official visit to Russia, and has met Putin five times, including on a trip to the Sochi Olympics opening ceremony that was shunned by U.S. President Barack Obama. The initiative, designed to resolve Cold War-era territorial differences and expand the supply of Russian energy to Japan, hit a snag when Abe joined his Group of Seven counterparts to back sanctions on Russia over its Crimea seizure.
----Japan’s relations with neighboring China and South Korea have frayed further since Abe came to power in December 2012, with suspicions in both countries of a revival of Japan’s militant past, aggravating existing territorial disputes.
In contrast to the five meetings with Putin, Abe has yet to sit down with Chinese President Xi Jinping, and South Korean President Park Geun-Hye refused to meet Abe until Obama brokered a summit as he sought to mend ties between the U.S.’s biggest allies in Asia to build a united front against a more assertive China.
In a sign of the improving China-Russian relations, the two countries reached a deal yesterday for Russia to supply natural gas to China through a new pipeline between the two countries, paving the way for hundreds of billions of dollars in fuel sales over the next three decades.
Abe also sought energy deals with Russia as he sought new supplies of fuels with Japan’s nuclear reactors offline following the March 2011 tsunami.
More
Ending on
China today, China’s leadership is clearly enraged, by recent US actions. My
guess is that we will not be kept waiting long for China to react with more
than just words.
China Voice: Spy charges expose U.S. cyber hegemony mentality
BEIJING, May 21 (Xinhua) -- The
United States has indulged in its cyber hegemony mentality again as it filed
ungrounded commercial cyber espionage charges against five Chinese military
officers.
It is really amazing to see that
the biggest cyber bully, which has virtually no credibility left in the cyber
world, could still stand at the moral high ground to accuse others.
The U.S. has repeatedly and
arbitrarily made baseless accusations about China's cyber espionage in recent
years, reflecting its hypocrisy and hegemony.
U.S. cyber hegemony is aggressive
and dangerous in nature.
Even as overall U.S. defense
spending witnessed cuts, the Pentagon is still beefing up its cyberspace force
at the U.S. Cyber Command, doubling its budget to 447 million U.S. dollars this
year, the Washington Post reported earlier this year.
The cyberspace force is also
expected to be expanded from about 1,800 people today to more than 6,000 by the
end of 2016, according to the plan.
The U.S. president has the power
to order preemptive cyber strikes, the New York Times reported last year. And
The Times reported that Obama ordered an escalating series of cyber attacks
against Iran's nuclear enrichment facilities.
While the U.S. has touted threats
to cyber security from abroad, the U.S. National Security Agency (NSA) has been
one of the most active attackers of computer systems around the world.
China is in fact a major victim
of persistent and large-scale cyber attacks from the U.S. targeting China's
government institutions, schools, universities, companies and even individuals.
China has always requested that
the U.S. give a clear and thorough clarification on why it targeted Chinese
institutions and people, but the country has still not received it.
The unfounded charge against Chinese
officers amounts to the same hypocrisy as a bandit calling for justice.
The Europeans were alerted to
risks by a European Parliament report more than a decade ago that the U.S. uses
sophisticated electronic spying techniques to gather economic intelligence.
The report put forward extensive
claims that the U.S. NSA routinely tracks telephone, fax, and email
transmissions from around the world and passes on useful corporate intelligence
to American companies.
Among the allegations, the NSA
fed information to Boeing and McDonnell Douglas, now part of Boeing, enabling
the companies to beat out European Airbus for a multi-billion dollar contract.
U.S. intelligence, by virtue of
data provided by nine Internet companies, including Microsoft, Google, Apple, Facebook,
and Yahoo, and other major telecom providers, tracked citizens' private
contacts and social activities recklessly, according to the Washington Post.
Allegations of rampant U.S.
electronic espionage have unfolded on a global scale in the wake of damaging
revelations by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden.
After it was exposed that
Brazil's state oil giant Petrobras was also targeted by U.S. surveillance,
Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff said the U.S. spying was out of economic and
strategic interests instead of concerns about terrorism as Washington had
claimed.
Instead of offering a sincere
"sorry," Washington has found that mudslinging at other countries is
a way to remedy its image, which has been tarred by its global spy program.
Spy Charges Ratchet Up Fears for Multinationals in China
May 22, 2014 5:27 AM GMT
Google
Inc. (GOOG) sends an e-mail to some employees traveling to China warning
that it’s a “restricted country” and online access to some internal systems
will be limited, according to a person familiar with company policy. Kyocera Corp. (6971) only makes photovoltaic cells in Japan and is reviewing cybersecurity measures at its solar-panel assembly plant in Tianjin. Infineon Technologies AG, Europe’s second-biggest chipmaker, fends off thousands of attacks from China every day, although most are amateurish, said a person familiar with the situation.
U.S. accusations of corporate spying by a Shanghai-based military unit have raised the stakes on the daily, behind-the-scenes struggle multinational companies face to protect intellectual property rights and confidential business plans in China. Military hackers stole designs for key reactor components from Westinghouse Electric Co., the Justice Department said.
The escalation risks putting companies in the crossfire between the governments of the world’s two biggest economies. China, which has denied any hacking, may retaliate against American companies for their government’s public accusations.
More
Hackers raid eBay in historic breach, access 145 million records
BOSTON (Reuters) - EBay Inc said that hackers raided its network three months ago, accessing some 145 million user records in what is poised to go down as one of the biggest data breaches in history, based on the number of accounts compromised.
It advised customers to change their passwords immediately, saying they were among the pieces of data stolen by cyber criminals who carried out the attack between late February and early March.
EBay spokeswoman Amanda Miller told Reuters late on Wednesday that those passwords were encrypted and that the company had no reason to believe the hackers had broken the code that scrambled them.
"There is no evidence of impact on any eBay customers," Miller said. "We don't know that they decrypted the passwords because it would not be easy to do."
She said the hackers gained access to 145 million records of which they copied "a large part". Those records contained passwords as well as email addresses, birth dates, mailing addresses and other personal information, but not financial data such as credit card numbers.
Miller also said the company has hired FireEye Inc's Mandiant forensics division to help investigate the matter. Mandiant is known for publishing a February 2013 report that described what it said was a Shanghai-based hacking group linked to the Peoples Liberation Army.
EBay earlier said a large number of accounts may have been compromised, but declined to say how many.
More
In Europe,
it’s voting time in the European elections. Between today and Sunday, Europe’s Bilderberger
serfs are allowed a token vote. Nothing will change of course, this is the EU
after all. Were there really to be a shock outcome, this being modern dumbed
down, immoral modern Europe, the peons would merely be told to keep voting time
and again, until they got the outcome right.
It is enough that the people know there was an election. The
people who cast the votes decide nothing. The people who count the votes decide
everything.
Barroso,
Van Rompuy, and EU cast of thousands, with apologies to Joseph Stalin.
U.K. Double Vote Means Twice the Misery for Party Leaders
May 22,
2014 12:00 AM GMT
Britain goes to the polls today in local and European elections that may
bring a weekend of misery for the leaders of all three main parties. As well as a European Parliament poll, the only time the whole country votes outside a general election, much of England is electing local council members. In the European vote, Prime Minister David Cameron’s Conservatives are forecast to come third in a national contest for the first time since women got the vote in 1918. And his coalition partners, the Liberal Democrats, are polling as low as fifth, behind the Green Party.
Ed Miliband’s Labour Party is meanwhile battling for first place with the U.K. Independence Party. If Labour is overtaken by UKIP, it will be the first time the main party in opposition hasn’t won the European election since 1984.
More
Wilders May Suffer Setback in Europe Vote, Polls Indicate
May 21, 2014 11:01 PM GMT
Geert Wilders’s Freedom Party may lose support in today’s European
Parliament elections in the Netherlands, polls indicate, bucking a trend that’s seeing
support for anti-European Union groups rise elsewhere. Amid the debt crisis that’s roiled Europe, parties that share Wilders’s anti-EU message are challenging for first place in countries such as the U.K. and France. In the Netherlands, while support has plunged for Mark Rutte’s Liberal-led coalition with the Labor Party, the biggest beneficiary has been the D66 party, which is campaigning for a “strong Netherlands in a strong Europe.”
Polls this week showed the Freedom Party with enough backing for four of the 26 Dutch seats at stake, compared with the five they won in the last elections five years ago. D66 is on course for first place, taking five seats, the polls suggest.
Wilders sought this week to galvanize backing for his party by cutting a star representing the Netherlands out of an EU flag in Brussels. “I’m taking this star back with me to the Netherlands and they’re never getting it back from us in Brussels,” he said in front of photographers and television crews outside the European Parliament.
More
We end on
Europe today, with Britain’s Royal Family joining in the race to start World
War Three, or at least the once Great Britain v Russia part of it. Unfit to be
King, perhaps? Time for another King Willie?
I didn't attend the funeral, but I sent a
nice letter saying I approved of it.
Mark Twain.
Diplomatic row as Russia demands 'clarification' on Prince Charles 'Hitler' comments
Russia demands Foreign Office clarifies 'official position' after Prince Charles likens President Putin to Hitler
9:00PM BST 21 May 2014
A senior Russian ambassador is to
meet an official from the Foreign Office on Thursday after the Prince of Wales
caused a diplomatic row by comparing Vladimir Putin to Adolf Hitler.
The Prince made his remark, in which
he likened Russia’s annexation of Crimea to the actions of Nazi Germany, during
a visit to a museum of immigration in Halifax, Canada.
He told a woman whose relations
were murdered in the Holocaust: “And now Putin is doing just about the same as
Hitler.”
Russian diplomats contacted the
Foreign Office on Wednesday night seeking an urgent meeting to clarify whether
Prince Charles’s provocative remarks amounted to an “official position”.
As a result, Russia’s deputy
ambassador will meet a senior FCO official on Thursday, The Telegraph
understands
The comments are regarded as particularly offensive by Moscow as 20 million Russians were killed during the war, including members of Mr Putin’s family.
----The Russian president has sought to revive the memory of the “Great Patriotic War” in order to bolster his reputation as the leader of a resurgent Russia. Prince Charles and Mr Putin are due to appear together at the anniversary of the D-Day landings in France next month.
More
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/prince-charles/10847992/Diplomatic-row-as-Russia-demands-clarification-on-Prince-Charles-Hitler-comments.html
Whoever speaks of Europe is wrong: it is
a geographical expression.
Count Otto von Bismarck.
At the Comex
silver depositories Tuesday
final figures were: Registered 56.13 Moz, Eligible 119.67 Moz, Total 175.80 Moz.
Crooks and Scoundrels Corner
The bent, the seriously bent, and the totally
doubled over.
“I came to believe through my life that what
is important is that we live by the common ethics of all religions – kindness,
decency, love, respect and honour for others – and not worry about the aspects
within religion that divide us.”
Sir Nicholas Winton at 105: the man who gave 669 Czech children the 'greatest gift'
Sir Nicholas Winton, described as Britain's Oskar Schindler after he saved hundreds of children from the Nazis, is to receive the Order of the White Lion from Czech Republic
Reaching the age of 105 would be
enough to mark most people out as remarkable. For Sir Nicholas Winton, it is
the least of his achievements.
The British hero who saved 669
Jewish children from the Holocaust celebrated his birthday with the news that
he is to receive the Czech Republic’s highest honour.
Sir Nicholas will be awarded the
Order of the White Lion, the country’s most revered state distinction, for
giving Czech children “the greatest possible gift: the chance to live and to be
free”.
The Czech president, Milos Zeman,
wrote to Sir Nicholas: “Your life is an example of humanity, selflessness,
personal courage and modesty.”
In 1939, Sir Nicholas
masterminded the transportation of children from Nazi-occupied Czechoslovakia
to Britain, saving them from the concentration camps.
He rarely spoke of his
achievements in the decades that followed, believing his actions to be
unremarkable.
He came to public attention only
in 1988, when he was reunited with some of those who call themselves
“Nicky’s
Children” on an emotional episode of the BBC programme That’s Life!
He was knighted by the Queen in
2003.
Sir Nicholas has outlived many of
those he saved, and looked positively sprightly at the Czech Embassy on Monday
night as he was presented with a cake bearing 105 candles.
"As far as I’m concerned,
it’s only anno domini that I’m fighting. I’m not ill, I’m just old and doddery
– more doddery than old, actually,” he said. Sir Nicholas insisted on standing
to deliver his speech.
He attributes his longevity to
good genes and staying active. When undergoing a hip replacement at the age of
103, doctors asked him if he would want to be resuscitated in the event that
his heart stopped on the operating table. He was incredulous.
“Resuscitate me, of course! I
want to live!” he said.
His daughter, Barbara Winton,
recalled: “Last year when I half-heartedly suggested that perhaps having a
party every year was a bit too much, his reply was that, as he didn’t know when
the last one would be, he intended to keep having them.”
Sir Nicholas was a 29-year-old
stockbroker about to set off on a skiing holiday in December 1938 when a friend
urged him to change his plans and visit Prague. A politically-minded young man,
he agreed to go in order to witness what was happening in the country.
The Nazis had invaded the
Sudetenland two months earlier and the situation in Prague was becoming
increasingly dangerous for Jews.
While agencies were organising
the mass evacuation of children from Austria and Germany, there was no such
provision in Czechoslovakia.
Sir Nicholas began meeting
parents who were desperate for their children to be taken to a place of safety,
and began compiling a list of names.
The first train left Prague on
March 14, the day before German troops marched into Czechoslovakia. Two fellow
volunteers, Trevor Chadwick and Doreen Warriner, organised the Prague end of
the operation.
Sir Nicholas returned to Britain
and masterminded the rescue mission, finding adoptive homes for the children,
pleading for funds and navigating the complex bureaucracy – ensuring each child
had the £50 guarantee (£2,500 in today’s money) to pay for their eventual
return, and securing exit and entry permits.
On some occasions, he forged Home
Office documents which had been too slow to arrive, and without which the
children would not have been allowed to leave Czechoslovakia.
Name tags around their necks, the
bewildered children arrived at Liverpool Street Station where Sir Nicholas and
his mother would greet them. Some had relatives in the UK, but most went to
live with strangers.
----His involvement with the victims of the Nazis did not end with the Kindertransport.
In 1947, he began work for the
International Refugee Organisation, part of the United Nations. His role was to
supervise the disposal of items looted by the Nazis and recovered by the Allies.
----His extraordinary life has been
chronicled in a biography, written by his daughter, Barbara. If It’s Not
Impossible… The Life of Nicholas Winton takes its title from his motto: “If
something is not impossible, then there must be a way to do it.”
----Asked
what message he would like the biography to carry, Sir Nicholas told his
daughter: “I came to believe through my life that what is important is that we
live by the common ethics of all religions – kindness, decency, love, respect
and honour for others – and not worry about the aspects within religion that
divide us.”
More
No civilization other than that which is
Christian, is worth seeking or possessing.
Count Otto von Bismarck.
The monthly Coppock Indicators finished April
DJIA: +189 Down. NASDAQ: +347 Down. SP500: +249 Down. Sell in May, go away.
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