China is part of gold market rigging as well and tries to talk market down

By cpowel: China May Limit Gold to 2% of Foreign Reserves, PBOC's Yi Says

By Xin Zhou: [1] BEIJING -- China is likely to limit its gold holdings to 2 percent of its total foreign exchange reserves, said Yi Gang, a deputy Chinese central bank governor.
The People's Bank of China last made known changes to its gold reserves in 2009, announcing that it held 1,054 metric tons. The bank hasn't made any revisions since then. That's about 1.8 percent of its total reserves, according to data from the World Gold Council.
"If the Chinese government were to buy too much gold, gold prices would surge, a scenario that will hurt Chinese consumers," Yi said today in a press briefing in Beijing. "We can invest only about 1-2 percent of the foreign exchange reserves into gold because the market is too small."
The nation's reserves, which have surged more than 700 percent since 2004, surpassed the value of all official bullion holdings in January 2004 and rose to $3.3 trillion at the end of 2012, data compiled by Bloomberg show.
Gold has fallen about 4.7 percent this year as the U.S. stocks extended a record rally amid speculation that the Federal Reserve may rein in stimulus as the recovery gains traction, curbing demand for safe-haven assets.
China was expected to displace India as the biggest gold consumer last year, according to forecast in November from the producer-funded World Gold Council. Chinese investors sought to protect their wealth by buying gold, after government measures to curb real estate prices and as China’s stock market has fallen in the past decade even though nominal gross domestic product rose fourfold.

Paul Craig Roberts on Hugo Chavez

Paul Craig Roberts: Hugo Chavez, President of Venezuela and world leader against imperialism, died. Washington imperialists and their media and think tank whores expressed gleeful sighs of relief as did the brainwashed US population. An “enemy of America” was gone.
Chavez was not an enemy of America. He was an enemy of Washington’s hegemony over other countries, an enemy of Washington’s alliance with elite ruling cliques who steal from the people they grind down and deny sustenance. He was an enemy of Washington’s injustice, of Washington’s foreign policy based on lies and military aggression, bombs and invasions.
Washington is not America. Washington is Satan’s home town.
Chavez was a friend of truth and justice, and this made him unpopular throughout the Western World where every political leader regards truth and justice as dire threats.
Chavez was a world leader. Unlike US politicians, Chavez was respected throughout the non-western world. He was awarded honorary doctorates from China, Russia, Brazil, and other countries, but not from Harvard, Yale, Cambridge, and Oxford.
Chavez was a miracle. He was a miracle, because he did not sell out to the United States and the Venezuelan elites.

'Sex scandals push church into crisis'

Press TV: There is a crisis in the Catholic Church that is related to the ongoing sexual abuse scandals and the resignation of Pope Benedict XVI

‘If you were a man, we’d kill you’: Captive journalist tells RT how she escaped Syrian rebels

RT: ‘I couldn’t bear it any longer’, recalls Anhar Kochneva. The Ukrainian journalist who escaped Syrian rebels five months after she was kidnapped told RT about what she had to go through while in captivity and how she managed to run away.
Kochneva, a journalist and blogger who reported as a freelancer for Russian and Ukrainian news outlets, was captured at the beginning of October 2012 near the Syrian city of Homs.
The kidnappers - members of the 'Free Syrian Army' – repeatedly threatened to kill her if the US $50 million ransom was not paid.

Schäuble intimates ‘briefed Holger Steltzner on ECB cover-up’ – Sources.

Yesterday’s sensational revelation in the FAZ about ECB leger de main probably came from a very high source

Wolfgang Schäuble, seen here in light-hearted mood 

The Slog: Mario ‘Squirrel’ Draghi has been at it again, and the right wingers in Germany are on his case. The ultra-conservative economics editor of Frankfurter Allgemeine  Zeitung Holger Steltzner has run a piece fingering the ECB, accusing it of holding back the EU’s annual wealth distribution data, and suggesting the central bank is ‘obviously’ afraid of a protest in the creditor countries involved in the decision about an aid program for Cyprus. The reason, says Steltzner, is that the data show how the poorer countries are, in reality, bailing out the richer countries. Herr Stelzner is being a little economical with his information…and the story’s provenance begs some fascinating questions. The Slog deconstructs the spin.
The article in yesterday’s FAZ  said the data contain “politically explosive material”: Italy’s financial wealth, at a median value of €164,000, lies above that of Austria, at €76,000. But allegedly, the German median value is thought to be in a similar range – in other words way below that of Italy. The political problem this story represents for Mario Draghi and Angela Merkel is that the financially poorer ezone countries seem to be bailing out the wealthier ones.

Beppe Grillo: "Italy Is Already De Facto Out Of The Euro"

Submitted by Tyler Durden: In a preview of an interview he will conduct today with German's Handelsblatt, the surprise winner of last month's Italian elections Beppe Grillo said that Italy is “already de facto” outside the euro and runs the risk of being “dropped” by the region’s wealthiest members as soon as their banks recoup what they invested in the nation’s bonds. His suggestion - the same that got Greece's G-Pap promptle sacked in late 2011 - a popular referendum to decide if Italy should remain in the Eurozone. Grillo's best line, however, was saved for Mario Monti: "he is a bankruptcy trustee on behalf of the banks" which is perhaps the most astute description we have read of the former Goldman operative ever. Still think Grillo is just a simple-minded comic with a penchant for anarchy?

The fatal choice between food or heating in bankster paradise Britain

TheRealNews: "People are afraid at the way the government are dealing with senior citizens." Senior Citizens and Disabled people say they're being abandoned by society. Thousands are left to die in cold homes every year in the UK, while energy companies threaten to raise cost of heating further Source

James Turk: Gold to $11,000 - We Are in a Fiat Currency Bubble

Greg Hunter: James Turk predicts gold will reach "$11,000" per ounce in the next five years. Turk goes on to say, "It might come sooner. It depends on when confidence finally breaks, and we're getting very, very close to that stage. There's nothing holding the dollar together but confidence." Join Greg Hunter as he goes One-on-One with James Turk. Source

"Sell JPY, Buy Gold, and go to sleep" Kyle Bass Warns "The 'AIG' Of The World Is Back"

Submitted by Tyler Durden: Kyle Bass, addressing Chicago Booth's Initiative on Global Markets last week, clarified his thesis on Japan in great detail, but it was the Q&A that has roused great concern. "The AIG of the world is back - I have 27 year old kids selling me one-year jump risk on Japan for less than 1bp - $5bn at a time... and it is happening in size." As he explains, the regulatory capital hit for the bank is zero (hence as great a return on capital as one can imagine) and "if the bell tolls at the end of the year, the 27-year-old kid gets a bonus... and if he blows the bank to smithereens, ugh, he got a paycheck all year." Critically, the bank that he bought the 'cheap options' from recently called to ask if he would close the position - "that happened to me before," he warns, "in 2007 right before mortgages cracked." His single best investment idea for the next ten years is, "Sell JPY, Buy Gold, and go to sleep," as he warns of the current situation in markets, "we are right back there! The brevity of financial memory is about two years."

Click the image below for the full presentation (unembeddable):

The main thrust of the discussion is Bass' thesis on Japan's pending collapse - which we wrote in detail on here, here, and here - and while the details of this thesis should prepare most for the worst, it is the Q&A that provides some very clear insights into just what is going on in the world.
Starting at around 50:00...

Bass On Immigration Reform in Japan - hailed as a solution to the demographic problem - Bass says "Ain't gonna happen. They need wage inflation and this will not encourage that. It's an untenable situation." Summing up his whole view on Japan - "I just don't think it can be fixed."

US MIC says kamikaze drone ‘has proven to be a very effective tool’ for butchery in Afghanistan

By Madison Ruppert: Despite the supposed wind down in Afghanistan, US regime death troops now have the kamikaze Switchblade drone – though some say go out of their way to say it’s not actually a drone – in their already massive arsenal, though the military won’t say how often it has been used.
I first mentioned the Switchblade in late 2011, though the military’s procurement of the drones was reported in October of 2011. It has come up a few times since then when dealing with tiny laser-guided bombs for small drones and an article on the future of drone technology from June of last year.
The Switchblade, developed by AeroVironment, is billed as a drone capable of providing soldiers “with a back-packable, non-line-of-sight precision strike solution with minimal collateral effects.”
Put more simply, it is a quite small drone that can be either piloted remotely or completely autonomously, can glide or use a quiet electric motor and gather real-time video and GPS data for “information gathering, targeting, or feature/object recognition.”
“The vehicle’s small size and quiet motor make it difficult to detect, recognize, and track even at very close range,” according to AeroVironment, though the most noteworthy feature is its ability to use the data gathered to crash itself into a target.

Manning: US Army like ‘child torturing ants with a magnifying glass’ (FULL LEAKED TESTIMONY)

RT: A speech freedom advocacy group has released audio of Bradley Manning’s testimony about his motives for leaking secret US government documents to WikiLeaks. It marks the first time the public has heard Manning's voice since his 2010 arrest.
Defying the military's ban on making recordings at Manning’s pre-trial tribunal at the military court at Fort Meade, the Freedom of the Press Foundation (FPF) has released Manning’s February account to the judge explaining why he exposed military secrets.
"We hope this recording will shed light on one of the most secret court trials in recent history, in which the government is putting on trial a concerned government employee whose only stated goal was to bring attention to what he viewed as serious governmental misconduct and criminal activity," the FPF said in a statement.
While unofficial transcripts of the statement are available, this is the first time anyone outside the court has heard Manning’s own explanation of how and why he gave the Apache helicopter video, Afghanistan and Iraq Wars Logs and State Department Diplomatic Cables to WikiLeaks.

Fighting in Ein Al-hilweh Refugee Camp Lebanon

Morris: Ain al-Hilweh (variously, Ayn al-Hilweh, Ein al-Hilweh, etc.; the literal meaning is "sweet spring") (Arabic: عين الحلوة‎) is the largest Palestinian refugee camp in Lebanon with over 70,000 refugees, located West of Mieh Mieh Village and Mieh Mieh Camp, Southeast of the port city of Sidon and North of Darb Es Sim village. Ein el-Hillweh was established near the city of Sidon in 1948 by the International Committee of the Red Cross to accommodate refugees from Amqa, Saffourieh, Shaab, Taitaba, Manshieh, al-Simireh, al-Nahr, al-Sofsaf, Hitten, Ras al-Ahmar, al-Tiereh and Tarshiha in northern Palestine.