Now that China and Russian are neck and neck with respect to official reserves, will China let Russia surpass them?

courtesy Ronan Manly/Bullionstar)

Ronan Manly: Neck and neck — Russian and Chinese official gold reserves

Submitted by cpowell on Mon, 2017-10-16 17:04. Section: Daily Dispatches
1:03p ET Monday, October 16, 2017
Dear Friend of GATA and Gold:

Gold researcher Ronan Manly today wonders whether in coming months China will let Russia overtake it in officially disclosed gold reserves. Manly acknowledges that the gold reserves of both countries probably exceed what they report. Manly’s commentary is headlined “Neck and Neck: Russian and Chinese Official Gold Reserves” and it’s posted at Bullion Star here:
https://www.bullionstar.com/blogs/ronan-manly/neck-neck-russian-chinese-…
CHRIS POWELL, Secretary/Treasurer
Gold Anti-Trust Action Committee Inc.
CPowell@GATA.org

end

 North Korea Warns “Nuclear War Could Break Out At Any Moment

Less than a day after South Korean and US naval forces kicked off their latest round of joint military drills, which are slated to run until the end of the week, North Korea’s deputy UN ambassador claimed during a fiery speech at the UN General Assembly that the Korean peninsula “has reached the touch-and-go point and a nuclear war may break out any moment,” the Associated Press reported.
Complaining to the UN General Assembly’s disarmament committee, Kim In Ryong argued that North Korea is the only country in the world that has been subjected to “such an extreme and direct nuclear threat” from the United States since the 1970s, adding that the isolated North has the right to posses nuclear weapons in self-defense.
This latest warning arrives as the US and South Korea are bracing for another North Korean missile test. For weeks now, South Korean intelligence has suspected that its isolated neighbor could use the beginning of China’s National Party Congress, which begins on Thursday, as an opportunity for what would be a bold act of defiance, angering both the US and the North’s primary benefactor and only major ally, China. The North has also been threatening to unveil a new ICBM that intelligence services believe might be capable of striking the west coast.

During his speech, Kim accused the US and South Korea of conducting military exercises involving “nuclear assets” and also mentioned a top-secret plan to stage a “secret operation aimed at the removal of our supreme leadership” developed by US and South Korean intelligence. The plan was exposed after North Korean hackers stole a large cache of military documents from the South.
Boasting about the country’s nuclear capabilities, Kim bragged that the North Korea had completed its “state nuclear force and thus became the full-fledged nuclear power which possesses the delivery means of various ranges, including the atomic bomb, H-bomb and intercontinental ballistic rockets.”

“The entire U.S. mainland is within our firing range and if the U.S. dares to invade our sacred territory even an inch it will not escape our severe punishment in any part of the globe,” he warned.
The dangerous rhetoric comes as Russia – which was recently rumored to be ramping up economic support for the North – reversed course and said it would curtail economic, scientific and other ties with North Korea in line with UN sanctions
Meanwhile, the European Union announced new sanctions on Pyongyang for developing nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles.
US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said Sunday that diplomatic efforts aimed at resolving the North Korean crisis “will continue until the first bomb drops.” His commitment to diplomacy came despite
President Donald Trump’s tweets several weeks ago that his chief envoy was “wasting his time” trying to negotiate with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, whom he derisively referred to as “Little Rocket Man.”
A report published by Russian media earlier today claiming that US and North Korean diplomats might be meeting at a conference in Moscow next week was quickly denied by the isolated country’s government, which said it’s not yet ready to begin negotiating with its greatest geopolitical foe.
Kim also reiterated that North Korea considers its missile arsenal “a precious strategic asset that cannot be reversed or bartered for anything.”

“Unless the hostile policy and the nuclear threat of the U.S. is thoroughly eradicated, we will never put our nuclear weapons and ballistic rockets on the negotiating table under any circumstances,” Kim said.
But in an interesting twist, Kim told the disarmament committee that while the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea — North Korea’s official name — would like to see nuclear weapons vanish from the face of the earth, aggressive expansion of nuclear arsenals has left the country no choice but to arm itself.
By accelerating the modernization of its weapons, the US is “reviving a nuclear arms race reminiscent of [the] Cold War era,” Kim said. He also noted that the nuclear weapon states, including the United States, boycotted negotiations for the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons that was approved in July by 122 countries at the United Nations.

“The DPRK consistently supports the total elimination of nuclear weapons and the efforts for denuclearization of the entire world,” he said.

But as long as the United States rejects the treaty and “constantly threatens and blackmails the DPRK

with nuclear weapons … the DPRK is not in position to accede to the treaty.”

end

(courtesy zerohedge)

Last week we reported that in the latest instance of criminal Japanese corporate malfeasance, Japan’s third-biggest steel producer admitted falsifying data about the quality of steel, aluminum, copper, iron powder and other products it sold to customers across virtually every single industry. The news sent the company’s stock tumbling 43% from levels before the scandal broke, to the lowest price since 2012.

KOBE STEEL TRADING AT 827 YEN ($.70) DOWN FROM 1900 YEN ($1.61)

The downstream impact was quickly felt, with selling hitting names across the global supply chain…
… while the NYT reported that the fallout has the potential to spread to hundreds of companies. As of a week ago, the extent of the problems at Kobe Steel was still unfolding, and prompted\ the Nikkei newspaper to conclude that “the falsification problem has become an issue that could destroy international faith in Japanese manufacturing.”
Well, as of moments ago that tipping point was this much closer, when the same Nikkei reported that some Kobe Steel plants in Japan had been falsifying product quality data for decades, well beyond the roughly 10-year time frame given by the lying steelmaker. According to the Japanese newspaper, “employees involved in the data manipulation used the industry term tokusai to refer to shipping of products that did not meet the standards requested by customers”, the Nikkei source said. Though tokusai usually refers to voluntary acceptance of such products, plants sometimes sent substandard goods without customers’ consent. The word was apparently in use at some plants for 40 to 50 years.
But wait, it gets better.

Not only did the company, having already been caught, lie to shareholders and rule-abiding employees how long this illegal behavior had been going on, but – in a glaring example of corporate idiocy – had effectively enshrined and codified its fraudulent ways, as the cheating procedures eventually became institutionalized in what was essentially a tacit fraud manual, allowing the practice to continue as managers came and went.

Meanwhile, the Nikkei also reports that everyone could have been in on it, as data manipulation may have occurred with the knowledge of plant foremen and quality control managers. Some shipments even came with forged inspection certificates.

Kobe Steel has tapped senior officials in the aluminum and copper business – where most of the misconduct took place – to serve on its board. How far up the chain of command knowledge of the fraud may have extended in the past remains an open question.
According to the latest update, systemic data falsification took place at no less than four Japanese production sites and appears to have affected virtually every product made by the company: the scandal has spread to the manufacturer’s mainstay steel business, with revelations Friday that steel wire was also shipped without inspection or with faked certificates. Meanwhile, the number of affected customers has swelled from around 200 to roughly 500.

One can only imagine the “honesty”, measured in alpha, beta and gamma radiation, if Kobe was also behind the Tepco nuclear disaster, where of course as we learned over the past 6 years, the amount of data fabrication was just as unprecedented. It is almost as if there is something rather rotten with Japan’s entrenched, corporate ways…

But not to worry: in an amusing twist, Kobe Steel has promised it will complete safety inspections for already shipped products in two weeks or so. A report on the causes of the fraud and measures to prevent a recurrence will come out in a month or so; we can’t wait to read the lies in that one. The steelmaker is conducting a groupwide probe that includes interviews with former senior officials. Because if there is anything Kobe will be successful at, it is diligent, honest self-reporting.
Where the company is certainly lying however, is when it told analysts earlier on Monday that “liquidity is not an issue” according to Bloomberg. Judging by the explosion in Kobe Steel CDS in recent days…

… one more gaffe by the scandal-plagued company, and Kobe Steel will be insolvent. As for all those who are considering providing liquidity to this fraud of a company, good luck with lying to yourselves that you will ever see any of that money back.

3. CHINA REPORT

China is building a huge 6 lane highway close to the border with North Korea. Is China planning to deploy its army against North Korea and seize its nuclear weapons.  This could lead to a path for World War iii

(courtesy Mac Slavo/SHFTPlan.com)

Road To World War 3 Unveiled: Is China Planning To Deploy Its Army Against North Korea?

Authored by Mac Slavo via SHTFplan.com,

New photos of a recent highway construction in China could be part of a contingency plan to invade North Korea or amass a huge army on their shared border.

Experts fear this newly uncovered plot could stoke the fires of World War 3, inevitably involving the United States.
According to The Express UK, communist China has traditionally been North Korea’s closest ally, but Kim Jong-un’s continued nuclear and ballistic missile tests have tested Beijing’s patience on the rising tensions worldwide. These new revelations also come as North Korea was spotted transporting 30 Scud missiles from Hwangju, south of the capital Pyongyang, to Nampo, on the Korea Bay coast opposite China.

New photos have emerged and they reveal that the Communist superpower is building a six-lane highway in its desolately populated northeast on route to North Korea.

With most Chinese peasants not able to afford the luxury of a car, the construction of the G1112 Ji’an–Shuangliao Expressway, has led experts to believe it will be used for quick deployment of tanks and troops to its North Korean border.
The photos obtained by Daily Star Online show Chinese construction workers digging tunnels through the mountains and massive cranes constructing bridges over rivers.

Chinese workers construct a six lane highway to North Korea’s border.
Scott Snyder, senior fellow for Korea studies and director of the program on US-Korea policy at the Council on Foreign Relations, told Daily Star Online:

“China’s Jilin province has even budgeted and paid for improvements in road infrastructure inside some parts of North Korea in recent years in order to improve logistical access to the Rason port inside North Korea.”
Dean Cheng, an Asia security expert at the Heritage Foundation, a think tank in Washington, said Beijing would have a ”vast array” of contingency plans involving military options to seize Kim Jong-un’s nuclear weapons. And just last week, a highly respected security think tank warned that the threat of war between China and the US was now real. In the bombshell report, the Rand Corporation said any conflict between North Korea and South Korea and the US would quickly spiral into World War 3.
If it’s decided upon by a nation to “take out” the North Korean dictator, Kim Jong-Un, American and Chinese troops would then rush across the border in a race to take control of the tyrant’s nuclear weapons and missile facilities colliding in a clash between China and the US, effectively spawning WW3. A whopping 85% of North Korea’s nuclear facilities are believed to be located within 62 miles of the Chinese border.
China actually threatened the US with a “real war” last month. The communist nation said that Donald Trump had made a “serious miscalculation over North Korea. Photos uncovered by a North Korean monitoring site suggested China was secretly helping Kim’s nuclear missile program. But there were other confusing and conflicting signs that North Korea may be preparing to fire missiles towards China next week.
It looks like the world is steamrolling its way to a third world war

end

While it will not come as a surprise to anyone following ongoing events in Spain, moments ago the country’s Constitutional Court said on Tuesday the referendum law passed by the Catalan government Sept. 6 to hold a vote on independence was unconstitutional and void, a spokesman said. The court’s full statement can be found here, while the opinion is at this link.
The court had originally suspended the referendum law as it studied its legality, though the Catalan government went ahead with the ballot regardless.

According to the Court, the Catalan legislation, approved by the region on Sept. 6 and suspended by the court the following day, usurped powers of the State to hold referendums. It also violated the principle that the Spanish nation is indissoluble.
In other words, this is the definitive confirmation from Spain that any Catalan separation is not possible, nor legal.
And with Spain having extended the ultimatum given to Catalan leader Puigdemont to definitively clarify his stance on the declaration of independence through Thursday, the separatist leader finds himself increasingly trapped, as a response will either prompt a crackdown by Spain or a blowback from other pro-independence groups inside Catalonia.
Meanwhile, the market appears to already feel more comfortable, with Catalan 2Y yields having fallen sharply from recent highs.

end

May made the mistake that she would pay the EU  when Britain exits the Monetary Union.  That was a fatal mistake as the EU now refuses to budge until the payment is signed in ink.  This will no doubt cause the collapse of negotiations and maybe here government

(courtesy zerohedge)

Theresa May’s Government Fears Imminent Collapse Of Brexit Negotiations

Following Theresa May’s dinner with Jean-Claude Juncker in Brussels, we have a promise that both sides are committed to accelerating Brexit negotiations…except nobody actually believes that.

Apart from the “bear hug” that Juncker gave Britain’s Brexit Secretary, David Davis, as they went their separate ways, there is no evidence that relations are any more cordial, or that any tangible progress was made in breaking the deadlock.
Rather than no progress, however, Bloomberg is reporting that the UK government sees the potential for the negotiations to collapse after this week’s EU Summit. “U.K. Prime Minister Theresa May’s government fears Brexit talks will break down unless the European Union gives ground at a key summit this week, according to a person familiar with her team’s views. Without a clear sign that negotiations will progress to trade and transition arrangements by December at Thursday’s summit of EU leaders, the entire Brexit process will be in danger of collapse.”

Mrs May made a telephone call on Sunday to the one person, Merkel, who could have softened the EU’s stance ahead of the dinner. Consequently, we were not surprised to learn that now “senior British ministers are losing faith in the EU’s willingness to strike a deal, the person said.”
As we’ve said before, it still boils down to money and the EU is not shifting until the two sides can agree on a number.
The growing problem for Mrs May is that she now has little room to maneuver due to the weakness of her own position. The source in Mrs May’s team told Bloomberg “May took a political risk by promising to pay into the EU budget and settle the divorce bill in a speech in Florence, Italy, last month and now needs something in return for before she can make concessions.”
So…the stand-off continues, with the EU contingent staying confident that they have far more to gain at this point.  “German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Emmanuel Macron are the two key obstacles to allowing talks to move on trade, according to the first official. Germany has a vested interest in delaying the progress in the Brexit talks because Frankfurt is trying to tempt companies away from London, the person said.”
You can throw in Paris, Amsterdam and Dublin as beneficiaries too…just as long as the deeply embedded structural problems in European banks don’t suddenly flare up again.

by Tyler Durden

Iranian Parliament Speaker Says US “Will Regret” Withdrawing From Nuclear Deal

Iranian Parliament Speaker Ali Larijani said Monday that the US would face stiff consequences if it withdraws from the JCPA – informally known as the Iran deal.
Speaker of Iran’s parliament Ali Larijani said that Iran “had a developed plan and a certain law,” should the United States withdraw from the agreement on Tehran’s nuclear program, adding that Washington would “regret it,” Sputnik reported.
Larijani made the statement in St. Petersburg where he was taking part in a parliamentary forum.

President Donald Trump elicited cries of protest from the US’s co-signers of the pact, after saying last week that his administration had decided not to certify Iran’s compliance with the deal and would instead leave the final decision up to Congress. The Trump administration has repeatedly insisted that, while Iran is technically complying with the terms of the pact, it is more broadly violating the “spirit” of the agreement by allegedly continuing to fund terrorist groups and developing and testing ballistic missiles.

Trump’s speech, in which he also accused Iran of being a threat to global security, elicited howls of disapproval from the US’s partners in negotiating the deal.
“We encourage the US Administration and Congress to consider the implications to the security of the US and its allies before taking any steps that might undermine the JCPOA, such as re-imposing sanctions on Iran lifted under the agreement,” French President Emmanuel Macron, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and British Prime Minister Theresa May said in a joint statement.
In Brussels, Federica Mogherini, the EU foreign policy chief, said the Iran deal is an international agreement and “it is not up to any single country to terminate it.”
In a statement after Trump’s speech, Russia’s foreign ministry said there was no place in international diplomacy for “threatening” and “aggressive” rhetoric, adding that such methods were doomed to fail.
“It is a hangover from the past, which does not correspond to modern norms of civilised dealings between countries,” the statement said.
“We viewed with regret the decision of the US President not to confirm to Congress that Iran is fulfilling in good faith” the nuclear deal, it added.
During an appearance on CNN’s “State of the Union” on Sunday, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson claimed the US is trying to stay in the Iran nuclear deal while hoping to achieve more from it, days after President Donald Trump threatened to pull the US out of the agreement.
The 2015 deal, reached between Iran and the United States, Britain, France, Germany, Russia and the European Union, saw Tehran curtailing its nuclear program in exchange for the easing of crippling economic sanctions.
In an amusing development, Trump has urged lawmakers to adopt a bill co-sponsored by Senator “Little” Bob Corker (who has recently traded barbs with the president after saying he wouldn’t seek another term in the senate) that would impose so-called “triggers” like Iran continuing its provocative missile launches, or advancing its nuclear-enrichment capabilities to the point to where it could build a nuclear bomb in a year’s time. Any of these actions would result in sanctions immediately being reimposed.
The US’s allies – not to mention President Donald Trump’s political enemies – have insisted that Trump’s decision to throw a wrench in the works of the deal could lead to its collapse, which in turn would result in Iran resuming its nuclear program, reviving the possibility of a future military showdown with a nuclear-armed Iran.

end

ISIS capital Raqqa surrenders

(courtesy zerohedge)

US-Backed Forces Declare Victory Over ISIS In Raqqa

After a US-backed coalition of Kurds, Shiite militias and Iraqi forces pushed ISIS out of Mosul earlier this year, a similar coalition of US-backed Arab and Kurdish fighters – supported by US airstrikes – has declared victory over ISIS in Raqqa, reclaiming the terror group’s de facto capital for the first time since ISIS first rose to prominence in 2014.
Victory was effectively assured as of Tuesday as the last remaining fighters surrendered to the allied forces after four months of fighting. The battle saw thousands of ISIS family members flee, and many locals who claimed they’d joined the group but only served in a civilian capacity had earlier surrendered.
The movement’s reported collapse in Raqqa followed a four-month long battle between the extremists and US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces, a coalition of Kurdish and Arab fighters. In the assault’s final days, hundreds of Islamic State militants surrendered to the SDF, leaving a handful of foreign fighters in the city, according to the Washington Post. According to rights groups, much of the city’s infrastructure is destroyed, and some 270,000 civilians remain in camps in surrounding areas.

A Reuters witness said militia fighters celebrated in the streets, chanting slogans from their vehicles. The fighters and commanders clasped their arms round each other, smiling, in a battle-scarred landscape of rubble and ruined buildings at a public square.
Allied fighters are still checking to see if any foreign fighters remain in the city, and are also working to clear landmines. Victory will officially be declared as soon as the mines are finished being cleared, Reuters reported.
“We do still know there are still IEDs and booby traps in and amongst the areas that ISIS once held, so the SDF will continue to clear deliberately through areas,” said Colonel Ryan Dillon, a spokesman for the coalition.
The flags in the stadium and others waved in the city streets were of the SDF, its strongest militia the Kurdish YPG, and the YPG’s female counterpart, the YPJ. Fighters hauled down the black flag of Islamic State, the last still flying over the city, from the National Hospital near the stadium.
Locals shared horrifying stories with Reuters after the fighting had finished.
Fatima Hussein, a 58-year-old woman, sitting on a pavement smoking a cigarette said she had emerged from her house after being trapped for months by the fighting. Islamic State had killed her son for helping civilians leave the city, she said.

Fighters managed to push the last remaining bastions of ISIS fighters out of a hospital and a stadium in the city. The stadium and hospital had become the last major positions held by Islamic State after the departure of some of the group’s fighters on Sunday, leaving only foreign jihadists to mount a last stand.
The final SDF assault began on Sunday after a group of Syrian jihadists surrendered after striking a deal with tribal elders, leaving only a group of 300 fighters to defend the last positions.
Many of the ISIS fighters who fought until they were killed or captured were foreigners with no local connection, Reuters said. The stadium and hospital became the last major positions held by Islamic State after the departure of some of its fighters on Sunday, leaving only foreign jihadists to mount a last stand.
ISIS had used its de-facto capital as a center for planning and operations for its warfare in the Middle East and its string of attacks overseas. It also imprisoned Western hostages there before killing them in slickly produced films distributed online.
The SDF’s Sunday advance also brought control over a central city roundabout, where Islamic State once displayed the severed heads of its enemies, and which became one of its last lines of defense as the battle progressed.
The offensive has pushed Islamic State from most of northern Syria, while a rival offensive by the Syrian army, backed by Russia, Iran and Shiite militias, has driven the jihadists from the central desert.
On Tuesday, a military media unit run by Lebanon’s Hezbollah group said the Syrian army on whose side Hezbollah fights had pushed into the last Islamic State districts in Deir al-Zor.
The only populated areas still controlled by the jihadist group in Syria are the towns and villages downstream of Deir al-Zor along the Euphrates valley. They are areas that for the past three years Islamic State ran from Raqqa

END

armed conflict is avoided and we do not have an oil conflict as the Iraqi Kurds  are now out of Kirkuk and have returned to the 2003 border

(courtesy zerohedge)

Iraqi Kurd Army Agrees To Return To 2003 Border, Oil Slides

In a dramatic de-escalation of recent hostilities in Iraqi Kurdistan, where in a blitz campaign the Iraqi army was able to recapture Kirkuk , effectively regaining control of the oil-rich region, the Kurdish Peshmerga forces, i.e. the army of the autonomous region of Iraqi Kurdistan told Sky News Arabia that it has agreed to return to the 2003 Iraq border, which if confirmed would be a major concession to Iraq which has been pushing for just this conclusion for the past month.

FOR THE COMPLETE ARTICLE SEE:

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2017-10-17/iraqi-kurd-army-agrees-return-2003-border-oil-slides?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+zerohedge%2Ffeed+%28zero+hedge+-+on+a+long+enough+timeline%2C+the+survival+rate+for+everyone+drops+to+zero%29

THE SOLD THEN SOLD OFF…

END

Stocks

END

Well that about does it for tonight