Will Russia's intelligence service, the SVR, now own up?

The Russian press is reporting on peace efforts in Kyiv by the Patriarch of Jerusalem and the Papal Nuncio in Ukraine trying to square the difference between Putin and Zelensky. It ends with the quote "Nihil est in religione, quod non fuerit in vita." Nezavisimaya gazeta: Переговорщики не от мира сего Версия для печати Обсудить на форуме Зачем Рим и Иерусалим направляют своих эмиссаров в Москву и Киев Милена Фаустова

From Washington Free Beacon: The U.N. internal investigation into whether its own staff at the embattled United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) participated in Hamas's Oct. 7 massacre was hamstrung and ineffective from day one, according to an independent U.S. review of the U.N. probe, congressional communications, and Western diplomats who spoke to the Washington Free Beacon. The shoddy probe ultimately enabled the United Nations to claim that in 9 of the 19 cases under review, the evidence was "insufficient to support" staff involvement in the terror spree, a finding meant to exonerate the agency and discredit Israeli intelligence.

"US threatens Miliband with reprisals over Israel sanctions" headlines an article in The Telegraph online today. The Israeli-Palestinian conflict dates back to a crucial switch in British policy in the 1920s after the Balfour Declaration of 1917 envisaged sharing Palestine between incoming Jews and resident Arabs. When Leo Amery, Jewish by birth, became Secretary of State for the Colonies in the mid-twenties, he switched policy in favour of Zionist as against non-partisan Jewish settlement. Later, on the eve of war, the British changed their mind once again, when it was already too late to end a process that had an immense dynamic of its own. This baleful inconsistency sounds all too familiar. Milliband's bad judgement and unerring ineptitude now combine to damage Britain's national interests once again. Perhaps the Middle East is too important for Great Powers to leave alone. But somehow their policies live up to that salutary comment by the weary former Prime Minister of Russia Chernomyrdin: "We hoped for the best, but things worked out as they usually do."

Hubris: The American Origins of Russia's War Against Ukraine is out in a Harvard paperback in the United States on 22nd of this month.

Even if the Bank of England is not interested in accumulating gold, there is nothing to stop private citizens from doing so as long term investments to escape the unavoidable depreciation of paper money that our governments have been practising since time immemorial. A leading personality in the business, American Rick Rule, is worth a look. He argues that only a tiny percentage of Americans are invested in gold, well below the historical average, which is four times that level. One can find his interviews on YouTube. Another big figure is the South African Francis Hunt, who goes under the name Market Sniper. There are also excellent, sober advisory services available to which one can subscribe, if one ventures out into investing in gold or silver mines, which are significantly under-valued compared to the share market in general. Just a thought...

The extraordinary achievement at local polls in Germany by the right-wing populist party AFD has been described in the Russian press as "a political Stalingrad" for the Chancellor and leader of the Christian Democrats. Читайте на WWW.KP.RU: kp.ru/

Should we not as a country buy gold and sell US federal debt (Treasuries)? Is the US dollar really going to retain its value relative to other currencies (perhaps) but also relative to gold? Unlikely given that since Nixon took the greenback off gold in 1971 it has lost nearly 90% of its value and looks to lose much more. A polemical piece by the principal economist for the Federal Reserve Bank protests too much, given that the Fed has notoriously drowned the domestic market with unsustainable debt for two decades or more. Weiss is upset that holding gold is increasingly viewed as better value than holding US Treasuries. He argues that the increase in holding gold is largely from private investors rather than sovereign states; that the "appeal" of Treasuries remains. Weiss insists that "the rise in the share of gold in global reserves is mostly accounted for by a handful of countries with large legacy holdings from the Bretton Woods era that have not accumulated gold in any meaningful amount since the 1970s—including the U.S., which cannot hold Treasury securities as international reserves." In other words, countries apparently hold Treasuries purely on economic merit, despite massive US public and private debt in dollars that the Federal Reserve and the Treasury have issued to meet payments for by printing ever more money. What Weiss cares not to mention is that since the US sanctioned Russia for attacking Ukraine in 2022 by cutting it off from the dollar-based international financial system, many countries have drawn the conclusion that they are safer being independent of the dollar. China as a state used to be the second largest holder of US Treasuries. Now that vulnerable position is held by Britain. Japan - a basket case - holds the greatest amount of US debt. Treasury Secretary Bessent had recently to intervene in the foreign currency market to forestall the massive selling of US Treasuries to meet Japanese financial needs. But is it wise for foreigners to continue holding US debt in such measure? And is what Weiss claims to be the "appeal" for dollars among dollar holders just a matter of wise financial house-keeping? It is above his pecking order at the Federal Reserve, but does the US not exert constant pressure on the Bank of England, the Foreign Office and HM Treasury to stick with the dollar in spite of Britain’s best economic interests? In other words, I would argue strongly, the competition between holding gold or holding dollars is not merely a financial matter but also and pre-eminently a matter of high politics.

Several dangerous factors have been converging in the same alarming direction. Those who rule Britain - including our spineless and hapless Prime Minister unelected to do so and clueless about economics - should take note. The American habit of weaponising the dollar has led to over-reach. In 2022, and against the urging of NATO Europe, the Americans went ahead with banishing Russia from the international payments (SWIFT)system because it invaded Ukraine. Instead of collapsing, the Russians retaliated. Two things happened: the Russians survived by strengthening trading ties with leading Third World countries like China and India. It helped that Russia is also a major gold producer. This has kept them afloat. And those Third World countries have since led the way in the process of substituting gold for the dollar as foreign exchange reserves. The net result in the longer term will be to diminish the dollar as states seek to banish counter-party risk and avert the potential for economic or political blackmail. Even Poland has done this in large measure. I am not suggesting that Britain will find itself in such need. What I am suggesting is that as a result of being the second largest foreign holder of US Treasuries (US debt) after Japan, we are going to be seriously damaged if the Bank of England (asleep after liquid lunches) and the Treasury (awake but clutching its pearls) fail to take decisive action. The dramatic attempt by Treasury Secretary Bessent recently to bail out Japan to prevent dramatic interest rises in the US government debt as Treasuries are sold en masse cannot be repeated indefinitely. Something has to give. Japan is a basket case. Now Bessent, who sold the pound sterling short and crippled our economy when John Major desperately clung to the ERM (making himself and Soros a fortune in the process) has announced he will strangle Iran financially by hunting down anyone helping it survive economically. This is a world of dog eat dog. And where will that leave broken Britain?