Pro-Russia Protesters Seize Government Building In East Ukraine, Demand Autonomy

Pro-Russia Protesters Seize Government Building In East Ukraine, Demand Autonomy (ZeroHedge, April 5, 2014):

While the general sentiment may be that Russia has put its territorial expansion plans vis-a-vis Ukraine on hold, if only for the time being, pro-Russian protesters in East Ukraine, whether premeditated or spontaneous, seem to have not gotten the memo. Earlier today, in a repeat of events that took place just as the pre-Crimea annexation plotline hit a fever pitch, dozens of pro-Russia protesters in the eastern Ukrainian city of Donetsk stormed the regional government building on Sunday and hung a Russian flag, demanding once again for autonomy from Ukraine.

Reuters reports:

The hometown of pro-Russian former president Viktor Yanukovich, Donetsk has seen tensions rise, as they have across mainly Russian-speaking eastern Ukraine, since his ouster and the installation of a pro-European government in Kiev.

Read morePro-Russia Protesters Seize Government Building In East Ukraine, Demand Autonomy

Former CEO Of Dutch Bank ABN Amro (And His Wife And Daughter) Found Dead

ABN Amro Ex-CEO Found Dead (ZeroHedge, April 6, 2014):

A mere two weeks since former JPMorgan banker, Kenneth Bellando jumped to his death, Bloomberg reports that the former CEO of Dutch Bank ABN Amro (and his wife and daughter) were found dead at their home after a possible “family tragedy.” This expands the dismal list of senior financial services executive deaths to 12 in the last few months. The 57-year-old Jan Peter Schmittmann, was reportedly discovered by his other daughter when she arrived home that morning. Police declined to comment on the cirumstances of his (and his wife and daughter’s) death. This is not the first C-level ABN Amro banker to be found dead. In 2009, former CFO Huibert Boumeester was discovered with (assumed self-inflicted) shotgun wounds.

As Bloomberg reports,

Former ABN Amro Group NV Netherlands Chief Executive Officer Jan Peter Schmittmann, his wife and a daughter were found dead at their home today after a possible “family tragedy,” Dutch police said.

The bodies of a father and mother and their daughter were found at the property” in the town of Laren, 32 kilometers (20 miles) southeast of Amsterdam, Dutch police said in a statement on their website today. Leonie Bosselaar, a police spokeswoman, said in a telephone call with Bloomberg News that the deceased were Schmittmann and two family members.

Read moreFormer CEO Of Dutch Bank ABN Amro (And His Wife And Daughter) Found Dead

All The Presidents’ Bankers: The Hidden Alliances That Drive American Power

All The Presidents’ Bankers: The Hidden Alliances That Drive American Power (ZeroHedge, April 5, 2014):

The following is an excerpt from ALL THE PRESIDENTS’ BANKERS: The Hidden Alliances that Drive American Power by Nomi Prins (on sale April 8, 2014).  Reprinted with permission from Nation Books. Nomi Prins is a former managing director at Goldman Sachs.

Lloyd Blankfein, James Dimon, John Mack, Brian Moynihan

NIXON’S BANKERS: When What Was Good for Wall Street Was Good for the President

Wall Street’s War

While the protests against the Vietnam War intensified in the first years of the Nixon administration, the financial elite was fighting its own war—over the future of banking and against Glass-Steagall regulations. National City Bank chairman Walter Wriston was a steadfast warrior in related battles, as he fought with Chase chairman David Rockefeller for supremacy over the US banker community and for dominance over global finance.

Rockefeller’s sights were set on a grander prize, one with worldwide implications: ending the financial cold war. He made his mark in that regard by opening the first US bank in Moscow since the 1920s, and the first in Beijing since the 1949 revolution.

Read moreAll The Presidents’ Bankers: The Hidden Alliances That Drive American Power

Zillow Study Shows 1 in 3 Homes are Unaffordable, Meanwhile Vacation Home Sales Soar

Zillow Study Shows 1 in 3 Homes are Unaffordable, Meanwhile Vacation Home Sales Soar (Liberty Blitzkrieg, April 5, 2014):

In a further demonstration of the socially destructive and ever widening gap between the haves and have nots, we see that the affluent are buying second homes at an ever increasing clip (up 30% last year), while first home buyers recede into the abyss as private equity and Chinese buyers make purchasing a home unaffordable for the average American.

Specifically, a recent study from Zillow showed that more than half the homes in seven major American cities are unaffordable based on historical standards. Those cities are: Miami, Los Angeles, San Diego, San Francisco, Denver, San Jose and Portland, Ore. Nationwide, it found that 1 in 3 homes were unaffordable. The results seem to back up housing analyst Mark Hanson’s recent conclusion that despite low interest rates, housing is even less affordable than the most bubbly year ever, 2006.

This also appears to be a primary reason behind Zillow now actively pitching its U.S. real estate listing to the Chinese, many of whom are corrupt and looking to launder ill gotten gains.

First, from Housing Wire:

Read moreZillow Study Shows 1 in 3 Homes are Unaffordable, Meanwhile Vacation Home Sales Soar

Freescale Patent Holders Were Not On Malaysian Airlines MH370

Freescale Patent Holders Were Not On Flight 370 (DailySlave, April 5, 2014):

One of the stories being promoted by the alternative media is that four patent holders of a new fabrication technology and employees of Freescale Seminconductor were on board Malaysia Airlines Flight 370.    This turns out not to be the case.  Even though it is true that several employees from Freescale are listed in the manifest none of the aforementioned patent holders are listed.

This is important to point out because it appears as if a bunch of these stories detailing a conspiracy to kill the patent holders to benefit the Rothschild family and others is at best poor journalism or at worst disinformation.  If you look at the official Flight 370 manifest supplied by Malaysia Airlines and an even a more descriptive passenger list provided by New York Daily News, it is clear that none of the patent holders names are listed.

Read moreFreescale Patent Holders Were Not On Malaysian Airlines MH370

Bananageddon: Millions Face Hunger As Deadly Fungus Panama Disease Decimates Global Banana Crop

Flashback:

Bananas Are Dying, Killed by Corporate Monoculture

Yes – in 10 years we may have no bananas


banana-fungicide
A aircraft sprays fungicide over a plantation (Getty Images)

Bananageddon: Millions face hunger as deadly fungus Panama disease decimates global banana crop (Independent, April 4, 2014):

Scientists have warned that the world’s banana crop, worth £26 billion and a crucial part of the diet of more than 400 million people, is facing “disaster” from virulent diseases immune to pesticides or other forms of control.

Alarm at the most potent threat – a fungus known as Panama disease tropical race 4 (TR4) – has risen dramatically after it was announced in recent weeks that it has jumped from South-east Asia, where it has already devastated export crops, to Mozambique and Jordan.

A United Nations agency told The Independent that the spread of TR4 represents an “expanded threat to global banana production”. Experts said there is a risk that the fungus, for which there is currently no effective treatment, has also already made the leap to the world’s most important banana growing areas in Latin America, where the disease threatens to destroy vast plantations of the Cavendish variety. The variety accounts for 95 per cent of the bananas shipped to export markets including the United Kingdom, in a trade worth £5.4bn.

Read moreBananageddon: Millions Face Hunger As Deadly Fungus Panama Disease Decimates Global Banana Crop

Military Drone Crashes Near Pennsylvania Elementary School

Military drone crashes near Pennsylvania elementary school (RT, April 5, 2014):

A nearly 400-pound unmanned aerial vehicle crash-landed near an elementary school in Lebanon County, Pennsylvania on Thursday afternoon, irritating members of the community and alarming civil liberties advocates nervous about drones flying over the US.

The drone, an RQ-7 Shadow, is 11 feet long with a 14 foot wingspan. Why it was flying in the air above Lickdale Elemantary School is unknown, but Major Ed Shank, a public affairs officer for the Pennsylvania National Guard, told Les Stewart of the Lebanon Daily News that drones operate out of Fort Indiantown Gap, an Army post in Lebanon County.

The 375-pound craft endured what officials called a “hard landing” before being run over by a civilian vehicle. No one was hurt in the incident, but the drone – reportedly worth $150,000 – was a “total loss” and rendered useless after slamming into the ground.

Read moreMilitary Drone Crashes Near Pennsylvania Elementary School

European Central Bank ‘Models’ €1 TRILLION In Money Printing

Spain-And-Italy-Are-Toast-Unless-Germany-Allows-The-ECB-To-Print-Trillions-Of-Euros

European Central Bank “models” €1 trillion in money printing (ZeroHedge, April 4, 2014):

Update: in direct flashback from the summer of 2011 when the ECB leaked news only to retract it within minutes, this just happened:

  • CONSTANCIO: DOESN’T KNOW ABOUT 1 TLN-EURO QE MODEL REPORT

For those who have forgotten, here is the ECB playbook: leak “false” rumor, gauge market reaction, then promptly deny said rumor knowing quite well how the market will respond when the real news hits. Rinse repeat.

* * *

When in desperate need to crush your currency (being bought hand over fist by the Chinese), so urgently need to boost German exports, since you are unable to actually do QE as per your charter, what do you do if you are Mario Draghi? Well, you leak, leak, leak that you are contemplating QE, and then you leak some more. Such as today.

From Bloomberg:

Read moreEuropean Central Bank ‘Models’ €1 TRILLION In Money Printing

And The World’s ‘Most Powerful’ Nation Is … Hint, NOT USA …

“The China Bubble”


And The World’s “Most Powerful” Nation Is… (ZeroHedge, April 5, 2014):

In terms of economic might, BBVA has created an index of “world market power” enabling an at-a-glance view of a nation’s impact on the global economy via relevance of exports, exposure to external shocks, technological content, and retained value-added. And the winner is… Hint, not USA…

Read moreAnd The World’s ‘Most Powerful’ Nation Is … Hint, NOT USA …

Moody’s Downgrades Ukraine’s Credit Rating to ‘Default Imminent’

Moody’s downgrades Ukraine to ‘default imminent’ (RT, April 5, 2014):

Moody’s Investors Service has downgraded Ukraine’s government bond rating one notch from Caa2 to Caa3, citing the current political crisis and deepening economic instability as reasons for its negative outlook.

The Caa rating is a credit risk grading pertaining to investments that are both very poor quality and entail a high credit risk. The current downgrade drops Ukraine from Moody’s “extremely speculative” rating to “default imminent with little prospect for recovery.”

Moody’s said the downgrade was driven by three factors, which “exacerbate Ukraine’s more longstanding economic and fiscal fragility.”

Read moreMoody’s Downgrades Ukraine’s Credit Rating to ‘Default Imminent’

Former Energy Dept. Official: People Near Tokyo ‘Were Getting A YEARLY Radiation Dose In About 10 MINUTES’ From Fukushima Releases

Flashback:

U.S. Navy Vice Admiral Alan Thompson Reported 1,500 MICROSIEVERTS Per Hour Thyroid Dose South Of Tokyo On March 20, 2011

More info down below.


Former Energy Dept. Official: People near Tokyo “were getting a yearly radiation dose in about 10 minutes” from Fukushima releases — “Radioactive gases might have been leaving at a rate of 300% a day, instead of 1% assumed by designer” (AUDIO) (ENENews, April 4, 2014):

Fukushima at Three: Folklore vs. Facts, Institute for Policy Studies, Mar. 7, 2014:

  • At 9:15 in — Robert Alvarez, senior Energy Department official on nuclear issues from 1993-99: I think that the jury as to the exact amount that was released in the air and the water but over time the amount of the radioactive materials released to the air was I would say roughly in the ballpark of the Chernobyl accident.
  • At 14:00 in — Alvarez: The radioactive gases might have been leaving at a rate of 300% a day, instead of 1% assumed by the designers. […] A radioactive isotope, a short live isotope called xenon-133, which is very radioactive, was found to 400,000 times normal in the city of Chiba. For 8 days. People were likely to be heavily exposed from just the short-lived isotopes. […] So they were getting a yearly dose in about 10 minutes.

    Read moreFormer Energy Dept. Official: People Near Tokyo ‘Were Getting A YEARLY Radiation Dose In About 10 MINUTES’ From Fukushima Releases

The Screaming Fundamentals For Owning Gold

Worlds-biggest-gold-coin-Australian-Kangaroo-1-Ton

The Screaming Fundamentals For Owning Gold (Peak Prosperity, April 4, 2014):

This report lays out the investment thesis for gold. Silver is mentioned only where necessary, as a separate report of equal scope will be forthcoming on that topic. Various factors lead me to conclude that gold is one investment that you can park for the next ten or twenty years, confident that it will perform well. Timing and logic for both entering and finally exiting gold as an investment are laid out in the full report.

The punch line is this: Gold (and silver) is not in bubble territory, and its largest gains remain yet to be realized; especially if current monetary, fiscal, and fundamental supply-and-demand trends remain in play.

Introduction

Read moreThe Screaming Fundamentals For Owning Gold

MIT Professor & US Experts: Japan ‘Must Act Now To Seal Fukushima Reactors, Before It’s Too Late’ – Concern US To Be Affected By ‘Explosions – A Chain Reaction, Engulfing Reactors One To Four’ – ‘Situation Is Dynamically Degrading And Unstable’ – Aircraft Can Likely Entomb Plant In 6 Months

MIT Professor & US Experts: Japan “must act now to seal Fukushima reactors, before it’s too late” — Concern US to be affected by “explosions – a chain reaction, engulfing reactors one to four” — “Situation is dynamically degrading and unstable” — Aircraft can likely entomb plant in 6 months (ENENews, April 4, 2014):

South China Morning Post (Subscription Required), Apr. 4, 2014:

Ernst G. Frankel is emeritus professor of ocean engineering at MIT — Jerome A. Cohen is co-director of the US-Asia Law Institute at NYU Law School — Julian Gresser is chairman of Alliances for Discovery — Dick Wullaert also contributed to the article

Baltic Dry Drops 9th Day In A Row; Worst Q1 In Over 10 Years

Baltic Dry Drops 9th Day In A Row; Worst Q1 In Over 10 Years (Zerohedge, April 5, 2014):

For a few weeks there, as the Baltic Dry Index rose, talking-heads were ignominous in their praise of the shipping index as a leading indicator of an awesome future ahead for the world economy. The last 9 days have smashed that ‘hope’ to smithereens (and yet the talking-heads have gone awkwardly silent, having moved on to some other bias-confirming meme). The Baltic Dry is down 25% in the last 2 weeks, back near post-crisis lows, and has just suffered the worst start to a year in over a decade. But apart from that, seems global trade is all-good and about to take off any minute now…

The worst start to a year in over a decade…

Read moreBaltic Dry Drops 9th Day In A Row; Worst Q1 In Over 10 Years

Experts: Sea Stars Decimated On West Coast – Population Ravaged As Mystery Disease Spreads South, ‘Gone From 100s To ZERO …’

Experts: Sea stars decimated on West Coast — Population ravaged as mystery disease spreads south, “gone from 100s to ZERO… hit really hard” — Turning to ‘bacterial goop’ — Mortality event like this never before documented — “Uncharted waters… likes of which we haven’t seen” (RADIO) (ENENews, April 5, 2014):

KPCC (Southern California), Apr. 3, 2014: A mysterious disease that has been killing massive numbers of sea stars along the West Coast is now firmly entrenched in Southern California […] causing some species to disintegrate and liquify into bacterial goop […] in populations stretching up into Alaska. […] Jayson Smith, a marine conservation ecologist at Cal Poly Pomona […] found 11 sea stars, four of which were exhibiting signs of infection […] the low numbers were actually a welcome sight. “[…] it is positive sign that there are some here, because that’s more than I’ve seen in other places,” […] Smith and his crew found no sea stars at Shaws Cove, a spot where they had previously counted about 400. As bleak as the widespread die-offs have been, some researchers are excited by the research opportunity […]

Read moreExperts: Sea Stars Decimated On West Coast – Population Ravaged As Mystery Disease Spreads South, ‘Gone From 100s To ZERO …’

IMF Pushes Pakistan To Sell Its Gold (Worth $2.7 BILLION), Islamabad Refuses

“Damn!”

“Where is the Pakistani ‘Gordon Brown’ when you need him?”

“Invade!”

“Oh, wait a minute …

… they DO have nukes.”


Gold-gold-GOLD
According to the IMF’s staff report, the State Bank of Pakistan holds over 2 million troy ounces of monetary gold, having $2.7 billion value at market rate.

Boosting forex reserves: Pakistan refuses to sell $2.7b worth of gold says IMF (The Express Tribune, March 29, 2014):

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan has refused to sell gold worth $2.7 billion, citing national security reasons, as the International Monetary Fund (IMF) pushes Islamabad to convert the precious metal into cash to build foreign currency reserves, revealed the global lender’s report on Friday.

The report, prepared by IMF’s staff led by its Washington-based Mission Chief to Islamabad Jeffrey Franks, also spills the beans on the ‘$1.5 billion gift’ to Pakistan by ‘Saudi Arabia’ – the name Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif’s government has so far refused to officially share with parliament.

Read moreIMF Pushes Pakistan To Sell Its Gold (Worth $2.7 BILLION), Islamabad Refuses

$1.5 MILLION Hotel Bill For President Obama’s One-Day Visit To Brussels

$1.5M Hotel Bill for President Obama’s One-Day Visit to Brussels (The Weekly Standard, April 4, 2014):

In late March, President Obama took a week-long trip through Europe which included a stop of less than 24 hours in Brussels, Belgium for meetings with the European Union and NATO. The president stayed at The Hotel, a twenty-seven story hotel in the center of the city. The estimated cost for the president’s stay, including about two weeks for an advance team, was $1,522,646.36.

1.5M Hotel Bill for President Obama's One-Day Visit to Brussels

Despite reports that the president travelled with an entourage of 900, the Justification and Approval documents only indicate a need for “283 Lodging Rooms.” However, sometimes more than one hotel is used during VIP trips. For instance, when the president travelled to South Africa for Nelson Mandela’s funeral, five different hotels were used.

Contracts for lodging have not yet been posted for the president’s other stops during his Europe trip, which included the Netherlands and Rome, Italy.

Shocking Facts About The Deindustrialization Of America That Everyone Should Know

Abandoned-Packard-Automobile-Factory

Shocking Facts About The Deindustrialization Of America That Everyone Should Know (Economic Collapse, Aprl 3, 2014):

How long can America continue to burn up wealth?  How long can this nation continue to consume far more wealth than it produces?  The trade deficit is one of the biggest reasons for the steady decline of the U.S. economy, but many Americans don’t even understand what it is.  Basically, we are buying far more stuff from the rest of the world than they are buying from us.  That means that far more money is constantly leaving the country than is coming into the country.  In order to keep the game going, we have to go to the people that we bought all of that stuff from and ask them to lend our money back to us.  Or lately, we just have the Federal Reserve create new money out of thin air.  This is called “quantitative easing”.  Our current debt-fueled lifestyle is dependent on this cycle continuing.  In order to live like we do, we must consume far more wealth than we produce.  If someday we are forced to only live on the wealth that we create, it will require a massive adjustment in our standard of living.  We have become great at consuming wealth but not so great at creating it.  But as a result of running gigantic trade deficits year after year, we have lost tens of thousands of businesses, millions upon millions of jobs, and America is being deindustrialized at a staggering pace.

Read moreShocking Facts About The Deindustrialization Of America That Everyone Should Know

Soaring Chinese Gold Demand And Its Geopolitical Strategy

Soaring Chinese Gold Demand And Its Geopolitical Strategy (ZeroHedge, April 5, 2014):

Geopolitical and market background

I have been revisiting estimates of the quantities of gold being absorbed by China, and yet again I have had to revise them upwards. Analysis of the detail discovered in historic information in the context of China’s gold strategy has allowed me for the first time to make reasonable estimates of vaulted gold, comprised of gold accounts at commercial banks, mine output and scrap. There is also compelling evidence mine output and scrap are being accumulated by the government in its own vaults, and not being delivered to satisfy public demand.

The impact of these revelations on estimates of total identified demand and the drain on bullion stocks from outside China is likely to be dramatic, but confirms what some of us have suspected but been unable to prove. Western analysts have always lagged in their understanding of Chinese demand and there is now evidence China is deliberately concealing the scale of it from us. Instead, China is happy to let us accept the lower estimates of western analysts, which by identifying gold demand from the retail end of the supply chain give significantly lower figures.

Read moreSoaring Chinese Gold Demand And Its Geopolitical Strategy

Dutch Government To Pay Microsoft ‘Millions’ To Extend Windows XP Support

Dutch government to pay Microsoft ‘millions’ to extend XP support  (Dutch News, April 4, 2014):

The Dutch government has signed a ‘multi-million euro’ deal with Microsoft for continued support for its Windows XP systems, according to website Webwereld.

Between 34,000 and 40,000 Dutch national government civil servants are still using computers equipped with Windows XP, even though Microsoft is ending its support for the programme this month.

Read moreDutch Government To Pay Microsoft ‘Millions’ To Extend Windows XP Support

Scientists Assure Us That The Recent Earthquakes On The Ring Of Fire Are Not Related

Ring-Of-Fire

Scientists Assure Us That The Recent Earthquakes On The Ring Of Fire Are Not Related (The Truth, April 2, 2014):

We just had a tsunami-triggering 8.2 earthquake off of Chile’s north coast, a 5.8 earthquake off the coast of Panama, a 5.1 earthquake in southern California, and a dormant volcano in Peru has awakened for the first time in 40 years, but scientists assure us that none of these events are related and that we don’t have anything to be concerned about.  Even though all of these events took place on the Ring of Fire, which is the most seismically-active area of the entire planet, the “experts” promise us that “the odds are overwhelming” that they are not related to one another.  So do you believe them?  A few days ago, I wrote an article entitled “12 Signs That Something Big Is Happening To The Earth’s Crust Under North And South America“.  This was before the earthquakes that struck off the coasts of Chile and Panama.  It appeared to me, as a “non-expert”, that seismic activity was really starting to heat up in North and South America – especially along the Ring of Fire.  But it turns out that I and everyone else that was concerned about all of these earthquakes was flat wrong.  According to the experts, it is just a giant coincidence that earthquakes are popping off like firecrackers all along the west coasts of North and South America.

Read moreScientists Assure Us That The Recent Earthquakes On The Ring Of Fire Are Not Related

Autopsy: Capitol Police Shot Unarmed Mother In The Back Of The Head

Full article here:

New revelations about mom killed by Capitol cops (WND, April 3, 2014):

Autopsy reveals stunning details in shooting that rocked Washington

WASHINGTON — First they called her a terrorist threat.

When she turned out to be an unarmed suburban mother, they said she was on drugs.

Now, WND has exclusively learned, without a trace of doubt, that was wrong, too.

Read moreAutopsy: Capitol Police Shot Unarmed Mother In The Back Of The Head