Unrest in Ukraine part of NATO's expansion plan

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Preparations for Joining Russia Already Underway

SIMFEROPOL, March 10 (RIA Novosti) – Crimean Prime Minister Sergei Aksyonov said Monday that preparations for the the southern Ukrainian region to become part of Russia are already underway.

Crimea was flooded with Russian troops following the fall of the government in the capital, Kiev, last month and a referendum to decide whether the region will become part of Russia will take place on March 16.

The peninsula will be ready to begin using Russian law within a couple of months of a pro-secession vote, and the local Finance Ministry is already working on a roadmap for switching from the Ukrainian currency, the hryvnia, to the Russian ruble, Aksyonov said in an interview with RIA Novosti.

The referendum in Crimea, where ethnic Russians make up about 60 percent of the population, is widely expected to return a favourable result that will pave the way for annexation by Moscow.

Aksyonov also promised that Ukrainian would cease to be an official language if Crimea joined Russia.

“We use two languages on a daily basis – Russian and Crimean Tatar,” Aksyonov said. “It’s certain that the republic [of Crimea] will have two languages.”

About 15 percent of Crimea's population of about 2 million people are ethnic Tatars, among whom support for the incoming regime in Kiev is reportedly strong. Aksyonov has also promised senior political positions in a new Crimean government to members of the Tatar community.

Formerly the leader of a local pro-Russian political party, Aksyonov was appointed prime minister last month by a vote in the Crimean parliament. At the time of the vote the parliament was being guarded by unidentified, masked gunmen who occupied the building the previous night.

Large quantities of heavily armed Russian troops accompanied by armored personnel carriers, military jeeps and other vehicles have entered Crimea in recent weeks.

The Kremlin has repeatedly denied the presence of Russian military in the region and maintains that the armed men are members of local self defense organizations.

The planned referendum has been brought forward twice from its original date of May 25 since it was announced by local lawmakers last month.

The authorities in Kiev and international leaders have condemned the referendum as illegitimate.

RIA Novosti

NATO Deploys AWACS as Crimea Organizes Self-defense Forces

NATO has not specified what in particular it is monitoring and possibly targeting in Ukraine



NATO AWACS are based in Geilenkirchen, Germany, and Waddington in the United Kingdom. Photo: Peter Bakema, Wikimedia Commons

NATO has given a green light to deploy AWACS (Airborne Warning and Control System) flights over Poland and Romania.

The BBC quoted NATO officials saying the “reconnaissance flights will take place solely over alliance territory” in response to a planned Crimea referendum to join Russia, a move governments in Europe and the United States have declared illegal. NATO added the flights will “enhance the alliance’s situational awareness” of events in Ukraine and Crimea.

The AWACS are based in Geilenkirchen, Germany, and Waddington in the United Kingdom.

AWACS operate as an airborne radar “picket” system to detect aircraft, ships and vehicles at long ranges for targeting purposes. In Europe, NATO uses AWAC in a similar fashion as the US Navy uses a Command Information Center on a warship. The system allows operators to track targets and engage in battle management.

NATO has not specified what in particular it is monitoring and possibly targeting in Ukraine. In recent days, Crimea has organized self-defense units in the autonomous republic “in order to respond to possible provocations from the coup-imposed government in Kiev,” according to InSerbia.info, a nonprofit news organization.

Aleksandr Bochkarev, head of the Crimean self-defense forces, told RIA-Novosti on Monday Crimea is organizing its own military force. “We’re shaping up our own armed forces now,” he said.




Credit to Infowars

We Are In FAR Worse Shape Than We Were Just Prior To The Last Great Financial Crisis

None of the problems that caused the last financial crisis have been fixed.  In fact, they have all gotten worse.  The total amount of debt in the world has grown by more than 40 percent since 2007, the too big to fail banks have gotten 37 percent larger, and the colossal derivatives bubble has spiraled so far out of control that the only thing left to do is to watch the spectacular crash landing that is inevitably coming.  Unfortunately, most people do not know the information that I am about to share with you in this article.  Most people just assume that the politicians and the central banks have fixed the issues that caused the last great financial crisis.  But the truth is that we are in far worse shape than we were back then.  When this financial bubble finally bursts, the devastation that we will witness is likely to be absolutely catastrophic.

Too Much Debt

One of the biggest financial problems that the world is facing is that there is simply way too much debt.  Never before in world history has there ever been a debt binge anything like this.

You would have thought that we would have learned our lesson from 2008 and would have started to reduce debt levels.

Instead, we pushed the accelerator to the floor.

It is hard to believe that this could possibly be true, but according to the Bank for International Settlements the total amount of debt in the world has increased by more than 40 percent since 2007...

The amount of debt globally has soared more than 40 percent to $100 trillion since the first signs of the financial crisis as governments borrowed to pull their economies out of recession and companies took advantage of record low interest rates, according to the Bank for International Settlements.

The $30 trillion increase from $70 trillion between mid-2007 and mid-2013 compares with a $3.86 trillion decline in the value of equities to $53.8 trillion in the same period, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. The jump in debt as measured by the Basel, Switzerland-based BIS in its quarterly review is almost twice the U.S.’s gross domestic product.

That is a recipe for utter disaster, and yet we can't seem to help ourselves.

And of course the U.S. government is the largest offender.

Back in September 2008, the U.S. national debt was sitting at a total of10.02 trillion dollars.

As I write this, it is now sitting at a total of 17.49 trillion dollars.

Is there anyone out there that can possibly conceive of a way that this ends other than badly?

Too Big To Fail Is Now Bigger Than Ever

During the last great financial crisis we were also told that one of our biggest problems was the fact that we had banks that were "too big to fail".

Well, guess what?

Those banks are now much larger than they were back then.  In fact, the six largest banks in the United States (JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America, Citigroup, Wells Fargo, Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley)have collectively gotten 37 percent larger since the last financial crisis.

Meanwhile, 1,400 smaller banks have gone out of business during that time frame, and only one new bank has been started in the United States in the last three years.

So the problem of "too big to fail" is now much worse than it was back in 2008.

The following are some more statistics about our "too big to fail" problem that come from a previous article...

-The U.S. banking system has 14.4 trillion dollars in total assets.  The six largest banks now account for 67 percent of those assets and all of the other banks account for only 33 percent of those assets.

-Approximately 1,400 smaller banks have disappeared over the past five years.

-JPMorgan Chase is roughly the size of the entire British economy.

-The four largest banks have more than a million employeescombined.

-The five largest banks account for 42 percent of all loans in the United States.

-Bank of America accounts for about a third of all business loans all by itself.

-Wells Fargo accounts for about one quarter of all mortgage loans all by itself.

-About 12 percent of all cash in the United States is held in the vaults of JPMorgan Chase.

The Derivatives Bubble

Most people simply do not understand that over the past couple of decades Wall Street has been transformed into the largest and wildest casino on the entire planet.

Nobody knows for sure how large the global derivatives bubble is at this point, because derivatives trading is lightly regulated compared to other types of trading.  But everyone agrees that it is absolutely massive.  Estimates range from $600 trillion to $1.5 quadrillion.

And what we do know is that four of the too big to fail banks each have total exposure to derivatives that is in excess of $40 trillion.

The numbers posted below may look similar to numbers that I have included in articles in the past, but for this article I have updated them with the very latest numbers from the U.S. government.  Since the last time that I wrote about this, these numbers have gotten even worse…

JPMorgan Chase

Total Assets: $1,989,875,000,000 (nearly 2 trillion dollars)

Total Exposure To Derivatives: $71,810,058,000,000 (more than 71 trillion dollars)

Citibank

Total Assets: $1,344,751,000,000 (a bit more than 1.3 trillion dollars)

Total Exposure To Derivatives: $62,963,116,000,000 (more than 62 trillion dollars)

Bank Of America

Total Assets: $1,438,859,000,000 (a bit more than 1.4 trillion dollars)

Total Exposure To Derivatives: $41,386,713,000,000 (more than 41 trillion dollars)

Goldman Sachs

Total Assets: $111,117,000,000 (just a shade over 111 billion dollars – yes, you read that correctly)

Total Exposure To Derivatives: $47,467,154,000,000 (more than 47 trillion dollars)

During the coming derivatives crisis, several of those banks could fail simultaneously.

If that happened, it would be an understatement to say that we would be facing an "economic collapse".

Credit would totally freeze up, nobody would be able to get loans, and economic activity would grind to a standstill.

It is absolutely inexcusable how reckless these big banks have been.

Just look at those numbers for Goldman Sachs again.

Goldman Sachs has total assets worth approximately 111 billion dollars (billion with a little "b"), but they have more than 47 trillion dollars of total exposure to derivatives.

That means that the total exposure that Goldman Sachs has to derivatives contracts is more than 427 times greater than their total assets.

I don't know why more people aren't writing about this.

This is utter insanity.

During the next great financial crisis, it is very likely that the rest of the planet is going to lose faith in the current global financial system that is based on the U.S. dollar and on U.S. debt.

When that day arrives, and the U.S. dollar loses reserve currency status, the shift in our standard of living is going to be dramatic.  Just consider what Marin Katusa of Casey Research had to say the other day...

It will be shocking for the average American… if the petro dollar dies and the U.S. loses its reserve currency status in the world there will be no middle class.

The middle class and the low class… wow… what a game changer. Your cost of living will quadruple.

The debt-fueled prosperity that we are enjoying now will not last forever.  A day of reckoning is fast approaching, and most Americans will not be able to handle the very difficult adjustments that they will be forced to make.  Here is some more from Marin Katusa...

Imagine this… take a country like Croatia… the average worker with a university degree makes about 1200 Euros a month. He spends a third of that, after tax, on keeping his house warm and filling up his gas tank to get to work and get back from work.

In North America, we don’t make $1200 a month, and we don’t spend a third of our paycheck on keeping our house warm and driving to work… so, the cost of living… food will triple… heat, electricity, everything subsidized by the government will triple overnight… and it will only get worse even if you can get the services.

All of this could have been prevented if we had done things the right way.

Unfortunately, we didn't learn any of the lessons that we should have learned from the last financial crisis, and our politicians and the central banks have just continued to do the same things that they have always done.

So now we all get to pay the price.

Credit to Economic Collapse

Was The Price Of Ukraine's "Liberation" The Handover Of Its Gold To The Fed?

A curious story, and one which should be taken with a mine of salt, has surfaced out of the pro-Russian newspaper Iskra, which reports - so far on an entirely unsubstantiated basis - that last Friday, in a mysterious operation under the cover of night, Ukraine's gold reserves were promptly loaded onboard an unmarked plane, which subsequently took the gold to the US.

From the source:

Tonight, around at 2:00 am, an unregistered transport plane took off took off from Boryspil airport.

According to Boryspil staff, prior to the plane's appearance, four trucks and two cargo minibuses arrived at the airport all with their license plates missing. Fifteen people in black uniforms, masks and body armor stepped out, some armed with machine guns. These people loaded the plane with more than forty heavy boxes.

After this, several mysterious men arrived and also entered the plane. The loading was carried out in a hurry. After unloading, the plateless cars immediately left the runway, and the plane took off on an emergency basis.

Airport officials who saw this mysterious "special operation" immediately notified the administration of the airport, which however strongly advised them "not to meddle in other people's business."

Later, the editors were called by one of the senior officials of the former Ministry of Income and Fees, who reported that, according to him, tonight on the orders of one of the "new leaders" of Ukraine, all the gold reserves of the Ukraine were taken to the United States.

Indicatively, according to the latest IMF figures, Ukraine's official gold holdings are just over 40 tons, having doubled in the past decade:

So just more disinformation and propaganda surrounding the Ukraine, or something more? GATA has submitted an inquiryinto the New York Fed to get official denial (because it certainly won't get a confirmation) from the Liberty 33 folks.

Of course, the best source of validation, and refutation, of this story would be the people of Ukraine, alas since not even Americans are entitled to observe how much gold is in Fort Knox, somehow we doubt that the Central Bank of Ukraine will be any more lenient in providing visiting and viewing hours for its much more compact gold inventory. Especially since the local population is far more busy celebrating its "liberation" by western powers.

We hope, for their sake, they weren't also just "liberated" of all their gold, which after a brief stay 80 feet below the surface at 33 Liberty, will promptly find its way either to the Bundesbank, or to the billionaire oligarchs, based either in London or elsewhere, and currently in charge of "post-liberation" Ukraine.

Finally, putting this into perspective, 40 tons of gold is roughly what China imports every ten days.

Credit to Zero Hedge

Iran's Intercepted Weapons Shipment Unloaded in Israel

World Bank Insider: “There Is A Huge Global Conspiracy”

Former Senior Counselor at the World Bank Karen Hudes has spent the last several years of her life working closely with whistle blowers from around the world to shed light on what she calls a “global conspiracy.”

While working for the World Bank as a member of their legal team Hudes uncovered so much corruption that she could no longer keep quiet. She followed the proper channels to report her findings, going first to the organization’s Evaluation Department and country directors, and then to the U.S. Treasury Department and even the United States Congress. All of her requests were ignored, and in some cases, completely covered up. So she did what any honest person would do. She went public. Suffice it to say, she received the typical treatment you’d expect for a whistle blower.

Hudes is no longer with the World Bank, but that didn’t stop her from continuing her investigation by joining an organization of other whistle blowers.

What she found once she started connecting the dots will blow you away. The corruption, as most of us know, isn’t just at the World Bank, but is woven throughout the fabric of the entirety of the global financial and political systems.

Her interview with Future Money Trends will absolutely blow you away.

We have solved the mystery as to why humanity has had nothing but wars and terrible problems… why we’re always at each other’s throats.

…

This group is part of a huge conspiracy…

We suggest you buckle up for this one:

(Watch at Youtube)

Covering everything from the current economic crisis all the way back to the reasons behind the assassination of President Abraham Lincoln, Hudes will leave you with a totally different view of how the upper echelons of the global power structure work and how far the elite will go to maintain total control.

Interweaving through topics that include financial collapse, high level banking machinations, Snowden, false flags, JFK, Lincoln, and even the Vatican, Karen Hudes is no holds barred.

I have gone to something called the International Organization of Supreme Audit Institutions and I have been collaborating with all the whistle blowers of the world… and we’re bound and determined that we’re going to get this corruption taken care of.

A very accurate… it’s called the power transition model… it uses political science and computer modelings… that model is 90% to 95% accurate… and it is predicting that the corruption that has been plaguing the world, it turns out for millennia, is coming down… a lot of people call that the Matrix, a lot of people call that the banksters… it’s actually much, much more.

Here are just some of the topics covered – listen to the entire interview for a better understanding of how it all fits together:

The fact that he [NSA Whistle Blower Edward Snowden] is getting coverage on the mainstream media should be letting people know that he is part of the Matrix, because the mainstream media is owned and controlled by the same group that are the owners of the Bank for International Settlement… that is a scam.

People are supposed to have currency that’s issued by their governments directly which doesn’t carry interest. That is what John F. Kennedy was trying to do and the reason why he was assassinated. That’s what Lincolnwas doing with the Greenbacks… that’s why Lincoln was assassinated…

The banks that are Too-Big-To-Fail… that’s really one banking cartel… and that group is going around buying up politicians… there are secret societies like the Knights of Malta and they’re promoting people and making sure that those people become the gatekeepers.

Many people do not know, for example, that in Charleston, South Carolina there was supposed to be a nuclear device detonated… instead two heroes made sure that the nuclear device went off off the coast… The Russians told people about that because they intercepted the Naval communications

If that [a loss of confidence in the US dollar] is allowed to happen we will enter something very similar to the dark ages. We won’t be able to pay for international trade… We will have pestilence… We will have mass starvation.

What we have found out, and this sounds implausible, but it is absolutely correct… the fact that is has been held in secret doesn’t mean that it’s not true… it is true… there’s a second species on this planet… they’re not extraterrestrials… remnants of their civilizations are all over the place… this group has large brains… they’re very distinct from homo sapiens… We know this because their DNA was just tested… they have skulls all over the place, because they have been on earth with us.

Just because this group likes to hide and likes to accuse people of having conspiracy theories doesn’t make these facts wrong. They’re facts.

Many of us have long suspected there are cartels that include leading financiers, politicians, business conglomerates, and secret societies working together to achieve their goals of maintaining power, control and stability over the citizens of every country in the world. They will do so by whatever means necessary.

The investigations conducted by Karen Hudes and her colleagues have shed a lot more light on the conspiracy. It turns out that it’s not just theory. It’s fact.

Credit to Infowars