US and French Warships Have Entered Black Sea

ANKARA, Turkey, April 11 (RIA Novosti) – The US guided-missile destroyer Donald Cook and French intelligence warship Dupuy de Lôme have entered the Black Sea, the Turkish newspaper Sabah reported Friday.

According to the US military command, the dispatch of the Donald Cook destroyer was a move to reassure the country’s NATO allies in the region amid heightened tensions due to the crisis in Ukraine.

Turkish political scientist Fatih Er told RIA Novosti that the US ships are not intended to scare Russia or conduct any military operations against the country.

“I do not think that in practice the Americans have some specific goal in mind, sending warships to the Black Sea. The ships going through the Turkish straits are not so much of a message to Russia, but rather a move towards Europe,” Er said.

“The US showed they are backing their European partners. The message by the Secretary of State and European leaders is rhetorical. I expect the US to make a move against Syria,” he added.

The USS Donald Cook is the third US warship sent to the Black Sea recently. In February, the US dispatched the missile frigate USS Taylor into the waters of the sea to provide security for the Olympic Games in Sochi.

The vessel ran aground off the coast of Turkey, and as a result exceeded the time it was allowed to spend in the region under international agreements.

Last month, the USS Truxtun passed through the Bosphorus to enter the Black Sea to conduct joint exercises with Bulgaria and Romania.

According to the Montreux Convention on the status of the straits, warships of countries that do not have access to the Black Sea may remain no longer than 21 days in the sea.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov earlier said that the presence of US ships in the Black Sea has often exceeded the limit under the convention.

Credit to RIA Novosti

U.S. & Russia at Odds over Ukraine, GOP wants IRS Chief Prosecuted, Out over Obama Care

The US Consumer Is So Strong, Family Dollar Is Closing 370 Stores

 

First, they came for the upper middle-priced retailers when Macy's shut down 5 stores and fired 2500... and nobody said anything.

Then, they came for the middle-priced retailers when JCPenney announced it would shut down 33 stores and fire 2000... and nobody said anything.

Then, they came for the lower-priced retailers when Radioshack celebrated the one year anniversary of shutting down 500 stores by shutting down 500 more...  and nobody said anything.

Today, as we plumb the depths of the US economic food-chain in that last bastion for the impoverished US consumer, dollar stores, we find that that staple for low-cost "everything" Family Dollar, which operates 8,100 stores around the country, will be shutting down 370 stores "as it tries to reverse sagging sales and earnings." It was not clear immediately how many thousands of workers would be affected by the store shuttering. We assume "many to quite many."

And what do they say? Why, that "the US economic recovery is obviously stronger than ever" of course!

From AP:

The retail chain follows competitors in highlighting the split between shoppers who are enjoying an improving economy and those being left behind.

Dollar General, the nation's largest dollar-store chain with 11,100 locations, offered a weak profit outlook last month after reporting weak fourth-quarter sales. And Dollar Tree, which operates about 5,000 locations, missed profit expectations for the holiday quarter in February.

Family Dollar has stumbled even more than its rivals because it has made mistakes in pricing, merchandising and the locations of its stores, analysts say. Still, the industry's problems are a big departure from a few years ago, when Family Dollar and other chains packed in customers and expanded rapidly by catering to cash-strapped people during the Great Recession.

But that expansion has spread shoppers thin. And retailing giant Wal-Mart is muscling in, too, by accelerating its growth in small stores, while increasing its offerings of small packages that are easy on the budget.

It wouldn't be a pathetic management team if it didn't scapegoat the weather instead of casting blame where it truly lies: an incompetent Federal Reserve that has done nothing for the recovery of the "non-1%" and sure enough:

Family Dollar Chairman and CEO Howard Levine told investors on a call that the poor weather led to numerous store closings, disruptions in merchandise deliveries and higher-than-expected utility and maintenance expenses.

Oh so, the reason revenue dropped 3.8% in the quarter was snow. So why did revenue drop 2.8% in the last quarter of 2013? Fear of imminent snow?

Levine did retain a tiny shred credibility when he added that "shoppers' financial constraints and a discount-driven holiday season also played a role." A rather massive one.

What other mistakes did management make?

Family Dollar had shifted away from its focus on $1 items and had offered too many temporary promotions, retail consultant Craig R. Johnson said. The company now says it wants to go back to focusing on everyday low prices and $1 items to restore confidence it offers a predictably good deal every time a shopper visits the store.

Yup: the US recovery is so strong, consumers can't even afford to spend $1 on groceries. And now buy stawks. The Fed demands it.

Finally, we are not being entirely fair. It is not every retailer that is getting crushed. Only those catering to the non 1% of course. "The retail chain follows competitors in highlighting the split between shoppers who are enjoying an improving economy and those being left behind." Indeed, as we first showed several months ago in "Shopping With Bernanke: Where QE Cash Ends Up Tells Us Who Benefited"...

"Recovery"

Credit to Zero Hedge

USS Donald Cook enters Black Sea amid Ukraine tensions

It's On: Gazprom Prepares "Symbolic" Bond Issue In Chinese Yuan

 

Curious what the fate of the petrodollar is? Look no farther than this Interfax update blasted moments ago by Bloomberg: "Gazprom Considers 'Symbolic' Yuan Bond Issue, Interfax Says."

Bloomberg adds that the gas giant is considering proposals from potential organizers to market bonds in yuan, Interfax reports, citing people with knowledge of the matter.

• Gazprom unlikely be able to gain more than $300m due to mkt volume, newswire reports
• No mandates, deal timeline yet
• Issue may add new investors, become a “topical” public relations act amid tensions with U.S., EU

Well, yes. It's called "symbolic" for a reason. More importantly, it is a symbol of what happens when one can "create" money de novo without the presence of the world's increasingly defunct reserve currency, either secured by gas or by future cash flows, i.e., unsecured.

Confused? Read:

• Petrodollar Alert: Putin Prepares To Announce "Holy Grail" Gas Deal With China
• Russia And China About To Sign "Holy Grail" Gas Deal
• 40 Central Banks Are Betting This Will Be The Next Reserve Currency

... and the New New Normal flow of funds will suddenly become clear -

1. Gazprom delivering gas to China.
2. China Gazprom paying in Yuan (convertible into Rubles)
3. Gazprom funding itself increasingly in Yuan.
4. Russia buying Chinese goods and services in Yuan (convertible into Rubles)

And all of this with the US banker cartel completely disintermediated courtesy of the glaring absence of the USD in any of the above listed steps, or as some may call it: from the Petrodollar to the Gas-o-yuan(something 40 central banks have already figured out... just not the Fed).

Credit to Zero Hedge

Is the US or the World Coming to an End?

Paul Craig Roberts
Infowars.com
April 10, 2014

2014 is shaping up as a year of reckoning for the United States.

Two pressures are building on the US dollar. One pressure comes from the Federal Reserve’s declining ability to rig the price of gold as Western gold supplies shrivel and market knowledge of the Fed’s illegal price rigging spreads. The evidence of massive amounts of naked shorts being dumped into the paper gold futures market at times of day when trading is thin is unequivocal. It has become obvious that the price of gold is being rigged in the futures market in order to protect the dollar’s value from QE.

The other pressure arises from the Obama regime’s foolish threats of sanctions on Russia. Other countries are no longer willing to tolerate Washington’s abuse of the world dollar standard. Washington uses the dollar-based international payments system to inflict damage on the economies of countries that resist Washington’s political hegemony.

Russia and China have had enough. As I have reported and as Peter Koenig reports here http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article38165.htm Russia and China are disconnecting their international trade from the dollar. Henceforth, Russia will conduct its trade, including the sale of oil and natural gas to Europe, in rubles and in the currencies of its BRICS partners.

This means a big drop in the demand for US dollars and a corresponding drop in the dollar’s exchange value.

As John Williams (shadowstats.com) has made clear, the US economy has not recovered from the downturn in 2008 and has weakened further. The vast majority of the US population is hard pressed from the lack of income growth for years. As the US is now an import-dependent economy, a drop in the dollar’s value will raise US prices and push living standards lower.

All evidence points to US economic failure in 2014, and that is the conclusion of John Williams’ April 9 report.

This year could also see the breakup of NATO and even the EU. Washington’s reckless coup in Ukraine and threat of sanctions against Russia have pushed its NATO puppet states onto dangerous ground. Washington misjudged the reaction in Ukraine to its overthrow of the elected democratic government and imposition of a stooge government. Crimea quickly departed Ukraine and rejoined Russia. Other former Russian territories in Ukraine might soon follow. Protesters in Lugansk, Donetsk, and Kharkov are demanding their own referendums. Protesters have declared the Donetsk People’s Republic and Kharkov People’s Republic. Washington’s stooge government in Kiev has threatened to put the protests down with violence. http://rt.com/news/eastern-ukraine-violence-threats-405/ Washington claims that the protests are organized by Russia, but no one believes Washington, not even its Ukrainian stooges.

Russian news reports have identified US mercenaries among the Kiev force that has been sent to put down the separatists in eastern Ukraine. A member of the right-wing, neo-Nazi Fatherland Party in the Kiev parliament has called for shooting the protesters dead.

Violence against the protesters is likely to bring in the Russian Army and result in the return to Russia of its former territories in Eastern Ukraine that were attached to Ukraine by the Soviet Communist Party.

With Washington out on a limb issuing threats hand over fist, Washington is pushing Europe into two highly undesirable confrontations. Europeans do not want a war with Russia over Washington’s coup in Kiev, and Europeans understand that any real sanctions on Russia, if observed, would do far more damage to Europeans. Within the EU, growing economic inequality among the countries, high unemployment, and stringent economic austerity imposed on poorer members have produced enormous strains. Europeans are in no mood to bear the brunt of a Washington-orchestrated conflict with Russia. While Washington presents Europe with war and sacrifice, Russia and China offer trade and friendship. Washington will do its best to keep European politicians bought-and-paid-for and in line with Washington’s policies, but the downside for Europe of going along with Washington is now much larger.

Across many fronts, Washington is emerging in the world’s eye as duplicitous, untrustworthy, and totally corrupt. A Securities and Exchange Commission prosecuting attorney, James Kidney used the occasion of his retirement to reveal that higher ups had squelched his prosecutions of Goldman Sachs and other “banks too big to fail,” because his SEC bosses were not focused on justice but “on getting high-paying jobs after their government service” by protecting the banks from prosecution for their illegal actions. http://www.counterpunch.org/2014/04/09/65578/

The US Agency for International Development has been caught trying to use social media to overthrow the government of Cuba. http://rt.com/news/cuba-usaid-senate-zunzuneo-241/

This audacious recklessness comes on top of Washington’s overthrow of the Ukrainian government, the NSA spying scandal, Seymour Hersh’s investigative report that the Sarin gas attack in Syria was a false flag event arranged by NATO member Turkey in order to justify a US military attack on Syria, Washington’s forcing down Bolivian President Evo Morales’ presidential plane to be searched, Saddam Hussein’s “weapons of mass destruction,” the misuse of the Libyan no-fly resolution for military attack, and on and on. Essentially, Washington has so badly damaged other countries’ confidence in the judgment and integrity of the US government that the world has lost its belief in US leadership. Washington is reduced to threats and bribes and increasingly presents as a bully.

The self-inflicted hammer blows to Washington’s credibility have taken a toll. The most serious blow of all is the dawning realization everywhere that Washington’s crackpot conspiracy theory of 9/11 is false. Large numbers of independent experts as well as more than one hundred first responders have contradicted every aspect of Washington’s absurd conspiracy theory. No aware person believes that a few Saudi Arabians, who could not fly airplanes, operating without help from any intelligence agency, outwitted the entire National Security State, not only all 16 US intelligence agencies but also all intelligence agencies of NATO and Israel as well.

Nothing worked on 9/11. Airport security failed four times in one hour, more failures in one hour than have occurred during the other 116,232 hours of the 21st century combined. For the first time in history the US Air Force could not get interceptor fighters off the ground and into the sky. For the first time in history Air Traffic Control lost airliners for up to one hour and did not report it. For the first time in history low temperature, short-lived, fires on a few floors caused massive steel structures to weaken and collapse. For the first time in history 3 skyscrapers fell at essentially free fall acceleration without the benefit of controlled demolition removing resistance from below.

Two-thirds of Americans fell for this crackpot story. The left-wing fell for it, because they saw the story as the oppressed striking back at America’s evil empire. The right-wing fell for the story, because they saw it as the demonized Muslims striking out at American goodness. President George W. Bush expressed the right-wing view very well: “They hate us for our freedom and democracy.”

But no one else believed it, least of all the Italians. Italians had been informed some years previously about government false flag events when their President revealed the truth about secret Operation Gladio. Operation Gladio was an operation run by the CIA and Italian intelligence during the second half of the 20th century to set off bombs that would kill European women and children in order to blame communists and, thereby, erode support for European communist parties.

Italians were among the first to make video presentations challenging Washington’s crackpot story of 9/11. The ultimate of this challenge is the 1 hour and 45 minute film, “Zero.” You can watch it here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QU961SGps8g&feature=youtu.be

Zero was produced as a film investigating 9/ll by the Italian company Telemaco. Many prominent people appear in the film along with independent experts. Together, they disprove every assertion made by the US government regarding its explanation of 9/11.

The film was shown to the European parliament.

It is impossible for anyone who watches this film to believe one word of the official explanation of 9/11.

The conclusion is increasingly difficult to avoid that elements of the US government blew up three New York skyscrapers in order to destroy Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Somalia, Syria, Iran, and Hezbollah and to launch the US on the neoconservatives agenda of US world hegemony.

China and Russia protested but accepted Libya’s destruction even though it was to their own detriment. But Iran became a red line. Washington was blocked, so Washington decided to cause major problems for Russia in Ukraine in order to distract Russia from Washington’s agenda elsewhere.

China has been uncertain about the trade-offs between its trade surpluses with the US and Washington’s growing encirclement of China with naval and air bases. China has come to the conclusion that China has the same enemy as Russia has–Washington.

One of two things is likely: Either the US dollar will be abandoned and collapse in value, thus ending Washington’s superpower status and Washington’s threat to world peace, or Washington will lead its puppets into military conflict with Russia and China. The outcome of such a war would be far more devastating than the collapse of the US dollar.

Credit to Infowars

US Destroyer Enters Black Sea To "Reassure NATO Allies And Black Sea Partners"

The war of words between the west and Russia escalated some more on Wednesday after NATO's top military commander in Europe, General Philip Breedlove, said the Russian military presence at the border with Ukraine continued and released satellite photos of tanks, attack helicopters and war planes to validate this. 

Russia promptly replied that it would have none of this, and not only denied once more that it has any plans to invade Ukraine, but foreign minister Lavrov said that Russia was merely retaliating to what it sees as a NATO build up in proximity to Russia:

"The constant accusations against us by the secretary general convince us that the alliance is trying to use the crisis in Ukraine to rally its ranks in the face of an imaginary external threat to Nato members and to strengthen demand for the alliance ... in the 21st century."

As opposed to the 19th century, one assumes, eh John Kerry?

Today it was NATO's turn to retaliate once more. First with words, after NATO Secretary General Rasmussen said: "I have this message to Russia: you have a choice to stop blaming others for your own actions, to stop massing your troops, to stop escalating this crisis and start engaging in a genuine dialogue." He added: "If Russia is serious about a dialogue, the first step should be to pull back its troops."

And then with actions, by explicitly confirming that Lavrov was absolutely correct when he accused NATO of building up weapons around Russia and thus forcing Russia on the defensive, when US destroyer Donald Cook crossed the Bosphorus overnight and entered the Black Sea. Why? To "show America's commitment to the region."

“The Donald Cook’s mission is to reassure NATO allies and Black Sea partners of America’s commitment to strengthen and improve interoperability while working towards mutual goals in the region,”Pentagon spokesman Army Col. Steven Warren said.

More importantly, it will also reassure Russia and its citizens that their country's stance that the arms building up along Ukraine's borders is indeed simply to defend against a boosted NATO presence is valid, and will likely prompt even more of a troop and weapons build up.

Until finally someone on either side of the border "accidentally" fires a shot across into the other side and then the war of words will progress into the real thing.

* * *

So keep an eye on further escalations by both NATO, and naturally Russia - which suddenly is once again on the defensive in its view - and perhaps on what Russia's aircraft carrier currently in Cyprus' port of Limassol is doing.

Credit to Zero Hedge