#BREAKING Belgium terror alert linked to a risk of attacks by ‘weapons and explosives’: PM
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“It Looks Like A Warzone” – Army, APCs, Roadblocks Deployed In Brussels After Explosives, Chemical Weapons Found
“It Looks Like A Warzone” – Army, APCs, Roadblocks Deployed In Brussels After Explosives, Chemical Weapons Found
In the aftermath of last night’s warning of an “imminent” terror threat in Brussels when OCAM Crisis Center and the government raised the country’s terror alert to the highest level, today the escalation continues and the Belgian capital looks like not only a ghost town but something out of a Call of Duty warzone after authorities deployed special forces, and APCs, shut the metro, locked down shopping centers, closed sporting events, and warned the public to avoid crowds, train stations, airports and commercial districts because of a “serious and imminent” threat of an attack.
As Reuters reports, a week after the Paris attacks carried out by Islamic State militants, of whom one suspect from Brussels is at large and said by authorities to be highly dangerous, Brussels was placed on the top level “four” in the government’s threat scale after a meeting of top ministers, police and security services.
“The advice for the population is to avoid places where a lot of people come together like shopping centers, concerts, events or public transport stations wherever possible,” a spokesman for the government’s crisis center said.
As AFP reported earlier, the spike in the terror threat is due to a risk of attacks by “weapons and explosives”.
The local security forces are taking no chances, and as can be seen on the photos below, APC have been deployed as the city barricades itself with the use of roadblocks at strategic locations.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
Explosion rocks nuclear power plant in Belgium
Explosion rocks nuclear power plant in Belgium
An explosion occurred overnight at a nuclear power plant in Doel, northern Belgium, local media reported, adding that the blast caused a fire. The exact damage from the incident remains unknown.
The blast happened around 11pm local time on Saturday. The fire started in Reactor 1 of the plant, but was soon extinguished by personnel.
The explosion didn’t cause any threat to nature, Els De Clercq, spokeswoman from Belgian energy corporation Electrabel that runs the plant, told Het Laatste Nieuws. There was no fuel present at the time of the incident as the reactor had been shut due to its expired operational license.
READ MORE: Mysterious drone over restarted Belgium nuclear plant prompts investigation
Doel Nuclear Power Station, one of the two nuclear power plants in the country, is located near the town of Doel in east Flanders. The plant employs about 800 people.
According to the Nature journal and Columbia University in New York, the plant is in the most densely populated area of all nuclear power stations in the EU. About 9 million people live within a radius of 75km of the station.
Saudis Poke The Russian Bear, Start Oil War In Eastern Europe
Saudis Poke The Russian Bear, Start Oil War In Eastern Europe
Any weakening of Russian support for Mr. Assad could be one of the first signs that the recent tumult in the oil market is having an impact on global statecraft. Saudi officials have said publicly that the price of oil reflects only global supply and demand, and they have insisted that Saudi Arabia will not let geopolitics drive its economic agenda. But they believe that there could be ancillary diplomatic benefits to the country’s current strategy of allowing oil prices to stay low — including a chance to negotiate an exit for Mr. Assad.
That’s a quote from a New York Times article that ran in February of this year.
At the time, we pointed to the piece as evidence that yet another conspiracy “theory” has become conspiracy “fact” as it effectively served to validate (to the extent The New York Times is validation) the thesis that at the end of the day, this is all about energy.
If the Saudis could use oil prices to force Moscow into ceding support for Bashar al-Assad in Syria, then the West and its regional allies could get on with facilitating his ouster by way of arming and training rebels. Once Assad was gone, a puppet government could be installed (after some farce of an election that would invariably pit two Western-backed candidates against each other) then Riyadh, Doha, and Ankara could work with the new government in Damascus to craft energy deals that would not only be extremely lucrative for all involved, but would also help to break Gazprom’s iron grip on energy supplies to Europe.
Those are the “ancillary diplomatic benefits” mentioned in The Times piece.
Only it didn’t work out that way.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
The Real Reason Belgium Sold 1,098 Tonnes Of Gold
The Real Reason Belgium Sold 1,098 Tonnes Of Gold
Belgium sold 1,098 tonnes of its official gold reserves since 1978.
For our global investigation how much physical gold central banks have stored at what location and how much is leased out, I decided to submit the local equivalent of a Freedom Of Information Act (FOIA) request at the central bank of Belgium, de Nationale Bank van België (NBB), to obtain information about the amount of Belgian official gold reserves, the exact location of all gold bars, the type of gold accounts NBB holds at the Bank Of England (BOE) and how much is leased out and to whom. The outcome of this research was not what I had expected.
History Of The Official Gold Reserves Of Belgium
Some of the questions I directed at the NBB I used a stepping stone, as this information is publicly available in part. At the end of August 2015 NBB was holding 227.4 tonnes of gold, down 0.04 tonnes from 227.44 tonnes in July, according to data from the Bundesbank that publishes the gold holdings of 19 European central banks and the ECB in compliance with the IMF’s most recent version of the Balance of Payments and International Investment Position Manual (BPM6). The Bundesbank (BuBa) publishes the fine troy ounces of the official gold reserves in ‘Gold bullion’ and ‘Unallocated gold accounts’. If we add up both categories the outcome for all countries equals the reserves disclosed by the World Gold Council.
From BuBa:
The balance of payments statistics will … be consistent with the framework set out in the sixth edition of the Balance of Payments and International Investment Position Manual (BPM6). The application of the sixth edition of the Balance of Payments and International Investment Position Manual (BPM6) is binding for EU member states by virtue of a regulation adopted by the European Commission.
Back in 1965 NBB was holding over 1,300 tonnes of gold. Since 1978 it has sold a whopping 1,098 tonnes, or 83 %.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
It’s Official: China Confirms It Has Begun Liquidating Treasuries, Warns Washington
It’s Official: China Confirms It Has Begun Liquidating Treasuries, Warns Washington
On Tuesday evening, we asked what would happen if emerging markets joined China in dumping US Treasurys. For months we’ve documented the PBoC’s liquidation of its vast stack of US paper. Back in July for instance, we noted that China had dumped a record $143 billion in US Treasurys in three months via Belgium,leaving Goldman speechless for once.
We followed all of this up this week by noting that thanks to the new FX regime (which, in theory anyway, should have required less intervention), China has likely sold somewhere on the order of $100 billion in US Treasurys in the past two weeks alone in open FX ops to steady the yuan. Put simply, as part of China’s devaluation and subsequent attempts to contain said devaluation, China has been purging an epic amount of Treasurys.
But even as the cat was out of the bag for Zero Hedge readers and even as, to mix colorful escape metaphors, the genie has been out of the bottle since mid-August for China which, thanks to a steadfast refusal to just float the yuan and be done with it, will have to continue selling USTs by the hundreds of billions, the world at large was slow to wake up to what China’s FX interventions actually implied until Wednesday when two things happened: i) Bloomberg, citing fixed income desks in New York, noted “substantial selling pressure” in long-term USTs emanating from somebody in the “Far East”, and ii) Bill Gross asked, in a tweet, if China was selling Treasurys.
Sure enough, on Thursday we got confirmation of what we’ve been detailing exhaustively for months. Here’s Bloomberg:
China has cut its holdings of U.S. Treasuries this month to raise dollars needed to support the yuan in the wake of a shock devaluation two weeks ago, according to people familiar with the matter.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
Greece Just Lost Control Of Its Banks, And Why Deposit Haircuts Are Imminent
Greece Just Lost Control Of Its Banks, And Why Deposit Haircuts Are Imminent
Yes, Greek banks may have been insolvent – something that was clear since the first bailout of 2010 – but at least the Greek state had control over them: as such it could have mandated mergers, recapitalizations, liquidity injections, even depositor bail-ins (perhaps the harshest lesson for the ordinary Greek population as a result of this latest crisis is that deposits are not “cash in the bank” but liabilities of insolvent financial organizations).
Starting on Wednesday that will no longer be the case.
Because while Greek banks will maintain their capital controls for months and withdrawals will be limited to €60 or less for months (the ECB is well aware that any boost to the ELA will result in a promptly surge in deposit outflows until the new ELA ceiling is reached, and so on ad inf) the one key change on Wednesday when the Tsipras government, whose coalition no longer has a majority in parliament and will have to rely on opposition votes, votes through the humiliating Greek “pre-deal” to unlock negotiations for the promised €86 billion in bailouts (which will be used almost entirely to repay the Troika) is that it will hand over the keys of Greek banks to the ECB.
Here is Reuters with this little known fact:
One of the preconditions imposed on Greece for a deal is that it signs into law European rules that would put euro zone authorities at the ECB and in Brussels, rather than Athens, in charge of identifying and closing or breaking up sick banks.
This in turn could lead to a shake-up of the sector that could see some banks close, with losses pushed onto bondholders and possibly even large depositors. In such circumstances, there would be little that Athens could do to prevent this.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
Will Seizure of Russian Assets Hasten Dollar Decline?
Will Seizure of Russian Assets Hasten Dollar Decline?
While much of the world focused last week on whether or not the Federal Reserve was going to raise interest rates, or whether the Greek debt crisis would bring Europe to a crisis, the Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague awarded a $50 billion judgment to shareholders of the former oil company Yukos in their case against the Russian government. The governments of Belgium and France moved immediately to freeze Russian state assets in their countries, naturally provoking the anger of the Russian government.
The timing of these actions is quite curious, coming as the Greek crisis in the EU seems to be reaching a tipping point and Greece, having perhaps abandoned the possibility of rapprochement with Europe, has been making overtures to Russia to help bail it out of its mess. And with the IMF’s recent statement pledging its full and unconditional support to Ukraine, it has become even more clear that the IMF and other major multilateral institutions are not blindly technical organizations, but rather are totally subservient lackeys to the foreign policy agenda emanating from Washington. Toe the DC party line and the internationalists will bail you out regardless of how badly you mess up, but if you even think about talking to Russia you will face serious consequences.
The United States government is desperately trying to cling to the notion of a unipolar world, with the United States at its center dictating foreign affairs and monetary policy while its client states dutifully carry out instructions. But the world order is not unipolar, and the existence of Russia and China is a stark reminder of that. For decades, the United States has benefited as the creator and defender of the world’s reserve currency, the dollar.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
Furious Russia Will “Respond In Kind” To Europe’s “Political” Asset Seizures
Furious Russia Will “Respond In Kind” To Europe’s “Political” Asset Seizures
On Thursday, nearly 50 Belgian companies were told to disclose their Russian state assets, setting the stage for the seizure of Russian property in connection with the disputed $50 billion Yukos verdict.
In short, Russia was required to submit a plan for a €1.6 billion payment by June 15 pursuant to the 2014 arbitration court decision which found in favor of Yukos shareholders who the ECHR ruled were treated unfairly when Moscow seized the company amid allegations of fraud and other crimes. Russia appealed the ruling and lost.
Because Russia does not look set to comply, Belgium is effectively moving to enforce the ruling itself. Austria and France also moved to freeze Russian assets on Thursday.
It now appears the timing of the asset freezes was designed to stir controversy in St. Petersburg where Russia is hosting an annual business forum (described by some as a “Russian Davos) and where Greece is executing the first stages of the dreaded ‘Russian pivot.’
Now, Russia looks set to retaliate, threatening to freeze Belgian, Austrian, and French assets until such a time as the countries’ “illegal” actions are reversed. RT has more:
Moscow will take reciprocal action in response to the seizure of its foreign assets, Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has warned.“Our response would be in kind. This is inevitable. This is the only way of acting in international affairs,” he told RBK-TV in an intervew.
Lavrov was commenting on the seizure in Belgium and France of Russian state-owned assets. The arrest were made on request of beneficiaries of the now-defunct oil giant Yukos, who were awarded damages from Russia by an arbitration court in The Hague. Russia is in the process of challenging the ruling.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
