World

Gold Repatriation Stunner: Dutch Central Bank Secretly Withdrew 122 Tons Of Gold From The New York Fed

A week ago, we penned “The Real Reason Why Germany Halted Its Gold Repatriation From The NY Fed [13]”, in which we got, for the first time ever, an admission by an official source, namely the bank that knows everything that takes place in Germany – Deutsche Bank – what the real reason was for Germany’s gold repatriation halt after obtaining a meager 5 tons from the NY Fed: … the gold community paid great attention to the decision of the German Bundesbank to “bring German gold home”.

Canada has the most computer literate kids

Our northern neighbors not only excel at making maple syrup, they’re also very successful at educating their youngsters. A new test measured the computer competency of thousands of Canadian kids, who reached an above average score, reports Engadget. In Ontario, 60,000 eighth graders took the International Computer Literacy Study, which assesses their ability to use a computer effectively, the website reported.

Putin awarded 8th-degree black belt in karate

Russian President Vladimir Putin has been awarded an eighth-degree black belt in the martial arts sport of Kyokushin karate, the Russian news agency ITAR-TASS reports. Kyokushin is a style of stand-up, full contact karate in which the participants wear no protective gear. The only restriction during fighting bans striking an opponent in the head with hands.

Israeli Police Busted A Massive Shipment Of Knives, Tasers, And Swords Bound For East Jerusalem

Authorities intercepted a massive shipment of tens of thousands of firecrackers, as well as knives, Tasers and other weapons Thursday that police say was en route to rioters in East Jerusalem. Intelligence information led police and customs officials to the shipping container in Afula, which had been marked as containing Christmas lights, police said. The container contained some 18,000 firecrackers, 5,200 knives, 4,300 Taser-flashlight devices, 5,000 electric shock devices and 1,000 swords, according to a police statement.

Families of terrorists celebrate their attack on Jewish synagogue, hail martyrs as heroes

The families of the two terrorists who killed four people in a brutal attack in a Jerusalem synagogue on Tuesday morning have hailed the two as heroes, as candies to celebrate the attack were handed out in the West Bank and Gaza. Alaa Abu Jamal, a cousin of the terrorists, said that Israeli policies were to blame for the attack at the synagogue, when the two entered the compound during morning prayers, armed with meat cleavers and a gun. “This occurred because of the pressures of the occupying Israeli government on the Palestinian people and in Jerusalem generally, and the ongoing harm to the al-Aqsa mosque; this act is something normal for any person who is connected to his people, to courage and to Islam.

Iran Threatens to Flood Gaza With ‘Millions’ of Iranian Fighters

The head of Iran’s Basij paramilitary force has claimed it is raising an army of “millions” to flood Gaza and Syria to support Tehran’s allies. Fars, Iran’s semi-official newspaper, reported that that Brigadier General Mohammad Reza Naqdi, Commander the Basij paramilitary force, as saying: “Millions of Basijis (volunteer forces) are ready in Iran to be dispatched to Syria and Gaza and they have come to us (for registration).

Russia has moved Mig-31 interceptors close to Ukrainian border

An unspecified amount of Mig-31s based at Perm have been deployed to Millerovo airfield, in the Rostov region, close to the border with Ukraine. This is a sign that Moscow may be preparing to actively control the airspace over Luhansk Oblast. The MiG-31 is a two-seater derivative of the MiG-25 in service since 1983.

Iranian regime to block Instagram

A body tasked with policing the Internet in Iran laid down a two-month deadline Tuesday for Iran’s government to regularise the use of Instagram or access to the site would be blocked. The Iranian regime’s authorities regularly block Twitter, Facebook and other social networking sites while many officials of the regime use them. Mohammad Ali Asfani, a member of the committee for filtering the web, said the two months would allow authorities to contact Instagram over secure access to its contents.

Israel to ease gun controls after attack

Israel is to ease controls on carrying weapons for self-defence after a deadly Palestinian attack on a Jerusalem synagogue, Public Security Minister Yitzhak Aharonovitch said on Tuesday. “In the coming hours, I will ease restrictions on carrying weapons,” he said in remarks broadcast on public radio, indicating it would apply to anyone with a licence to carry a gun, such as private security guards and off-duty army officers. Aharonovitch did not elaborate, but it is believed that under the planned changes security personnel would be allowed to carry their arms even when off duty.

Ukrainian president says his country is ready to go to war with Russia and says the crisis there is more dangerous than the spread of ISIS

Ukrainian president Petro Poroshenko today said he is ready for ‘total war’ against Russia as he claimed the crisis in eastern Europe is more serious than the threat from Islamic State. Kiev is convinced that Moscow is strengthening its troop presence on its borders and inside rebel-held areas, which the Kremlin has repeatedly denied. As Putin returned from the G20 in Brisbane where he was under siege from Western leaders, Poroshenko claimed his army is now better prepared to fight to defend its territory than when the conflict began.

Russia deports several diplomats, warns it will defend separatists in Ukraine

Russia has deported several Polish and one German diplomat in recent days, the latest in a series of tit-for-tat expulsions that have accompanied mounting tensions between Russia and European governments over the crisis in Ukraine. In an interview with German ARD television broadcast late Sunday, President Vladimir Putin of Russia said he still believes diplomacy can bring peace to eastern Ukraine, but he said Moscow would not allow the separatists there to be “annihilated.” The Russian Foreign Ministry said Monday that “a number of Polish diplomats” were being sent home in retaliation for the “unfriendly and unfounded” expulsion of Russian diplomats from Poland this month.

Israel: 4 dead after men with knives, gun attack Jerusalem synagogue

The people who killed the four worshipers at a Jerusalem synagogue “came with great hatred and … incitement against the Jewish people and its state,” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Tuesday. He blamed the Palestinian Authority and others for spreading “libels against the state of Israel” and other incitements that he said have led to today’s killings and other recent deaths.

Secret EU document outlines sanctions to impose if Israel thwarts two-state solution

The European Union has distributed a confidential document to its 28 member states that contains the draft of a proposal for sanctions to be imposed on Israel if it takes action in the West Bank that could make the two-state solution impossible, European diplomatic sources and senior Israeli officials said. (Read the rest of the story here…)

Putin Warns He Won’t Let Ukraine Defeat Eastern Rebels

Russian President Vladimir Putin warned he won’t allow rebels in eastern Ukraine to be defeated by government forces as European Union ministers met to consider imposing more sanctions on the separatists. “You want the Ukrainian central authorities to annihilate everyone there, all of their political foes and opponents,” Putin said in an interview yesterday with Germany’s ARD television. “Is that what you want?

Israel economy shrinks for first time in more than 5 years

Israel’s economy contracted for the first time in more than five years in the third quarter, as growth was hit by the effects of a war with Islamist militants in Gaza. Gross domestic product fell 0.4 percent in the July-September period, the Central Bureau of Statistics said on Sunday.

ISIS has 200,000-strong force, says Kurdish leader

Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS/ISIL) militants have an army of about 200,000 fighters, over six times larger than previous CIA estimates, a senior Iraqi Kurdish leader has claimed. “I am talking about hundreds of thousands of fighters because they are able to mobilize young Arab men in the territory they have taken,” Fuad Hussein, the chief of staff of Iraqi Kurdish President Massoud Barzani, told the UK Independent in an exclusive interview. Controlling roughly one third of Iraq and Syria, Hussein says the 250,000 square kilometer territory has provided IS a 10 to 12 million-large population from which to attract potential fighters.

David Cameron warns of looming second global crash

David Cameron has issued a stark message that “red warning lights are flashing on the dashboard of the global economy” in the same way as when the financial crash brought the world to its knees six years ago. Writing in the Guardian at the close of the G20 summit in Brisbane, Cameron says there is now “a dangerous backdrop of instability and uncertainty” that presents a real risk to the UK recovery, adding that the eurozone slowdown is already having an impact on British exports and manufacturing. His warning comes days after the Bank of England governor, Mark Carney, claimed a spectre of stagnation was haunting Europe.

5 reasons to worry about the world economy

There’s little reason for cheer in Europe. While Germany narrowly avoided a recession in the third quarter, the latest numbers show the $13 trillion eurozone economy is stuck in first gear. High unemployment, high debt and a lack of investment continue to hold the region back.

Japan enters recession in second quarter

Japan reported Monday that its economy contracted at a real annual rate of 1.6 percent in July-September, in a second straight quarterly decline that returned the country to recession. A steep drop in residential investment failed to offset a modest recovery in exports, the government reported.

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