India's central bank selling and swapping gold: Is it a wise move?

Quite an interesting headline it was. India's Central bank seeks to swap gold to improve reserve quality – was the headline of the news earlier this month.

From Reuter's 

 

….. The Economic Times reported earlier that the RBI had sounded out bankers on a plan to swap some of the old, relatively impure, gold that has been lying in its own vaults since before independence in 1947. MORE SUPPLIES Market participants said the central bank was likely to offload its old gold onto the local market in India....

Knowing Indians' love for gold, the move has been touted as a courageous step in curtailing not only smuggling of gold by consumers but also as a way to improve India's management of its foreign currency and gold reserve.  The gold sold on the open market, thus, would remain in the hands of consumers and not with the central bank.

Again from the same Reuters article

…. The central bank imposed the import restrictions last year in a successful bid to contain a balance of payments crisis, but the unintended result has been a large increase in gold smuggling into India, the world's second largest consumer of the precious metal after China. Part of India's consumption was met through illicit imports. The WGC reckons that 200-250 tonnes of gold have been smuggled into India since the imposition of import controls. Only 2.5 tonnes of smuggled gold - or 1 percent of the estimated total - have been seized by law enforcement agencies.

So far so good. But now comes the curious part.

…. MUMBAI, July 2 (Reuters) - India's central bank said on Wednesday it has sought quotes from banks to swap gold in its own vaults for international-standard gold, aiming to improve the management of its reserves. The Reserve Bank of India said the operation would "standardize the gold available with RBI in India with respect to international standards" and the gold acquired would be delivered to its overseas custodian, the Bank of England. By holding gold reserves in London, the RBI would gain flexibility to mobilize them if needed to defend the currency. It shipped some of its gold holdings to Britain in 1991 as part of a series of emergency measures to tackle a financial crisis …..

Re-reading the highlighted statement brings a number of questions to mind.

1.  Is it a good move to store gold in off-shore vault, in this case Bank of England's vault?

Consider the case of Swiss parliament which is set to vote on referendum that will force Swiss national bank to hold 20% of its reserve in gold, forbid it to sell such assets, and, moreover, hold these gold assets in Switzerland only.

From BloombergBusinessWeek

Swiss Parliament Recommends Rejection of Initiative on SNB Gold [snip] ...Swiss parliamentarians urged rejection of a popular initiative that would curtail the Swiss National Bank (SNBN)’s independence by requiring it to hold a fixed portion of its assets in gold. Members of the Swiss parliament’s lower house voted 129 to 20 with 25 abstentions today against the plan, which demands that at least 20 percent of the central bank’s assets be in gold. It would also disallow the sale of any such holdings and require all SNB gold be held in Switzerland. … [snip] ...As of April 2013, more than 70 percent of the SNB’s gold was in Switzerland, with about 20 percent at the Bank of England and 10 percent at the Bank of Canada, according to Jordan. ...

2. What percentage of gold reserve will be kept in the vaults of a foreign central bank if, at all, it becomes necessary to store it outside the country? 

3. When all the currencies of the world are getting hammered, is it a wise move to keep gold reserve in the foreign bank?

4. Will the gold, that will be swapped with Bank of England, be physical gold or paper gold?

5. And, finally most important, will India be able to periodically check the inventory of its holdings in Bank of England?

Take, for example, this news item that appeared in Deutsch-Welle

… Tracking down Germany's gold About half of Germany's gold reserves are stored in the United States, but it's been so long since they were allowed in to see it, that some German politicians are asking whether it is still there. … …For decades around half of the German government's gold reserves - some $80 billion (62 billion euros) worth - has been stored in a vault deep below the US Federal Reserve building on Liberty Street in New York. Or at least that's what the US authorities have said. But those assurances aren't enough for some German politicians who are asking: how do we know our gold is really there?... ... "I think the Euro crisis forms the background to what is a slight paranoia in Germany right now. The mood was not improved by reports that the New York Fed was refusing permission to German politicians to visit the gold, on grounds of security. But that's not the way all bullion companies work, said Adrian Ash, a gold analyst, at BullionVault.com, a company that holds some 30 tons of bullion for private investors. ...Some Germans now say that given the uncertainty swirling around the Euro, their gold reserves should be brought home and stored on German soil. That would be better for the nation's peace of mind. ...In a bid to assuage German anxieties, the Bundesbank is now reported to be considering a token repatriation of German gold. Plans are said to be afoot to bring back 150 tons of it from New York, but that's just 10 percent of the total held in New York.

Read the whole thing. It is quite an interesting article and raises one's doubts about this whole gold swap business and storing the precious metal in foreign bank vault.

India intends to purchase gold internationally and deliver it to Bank of England for storage. In spite of the lofty reasons given for such a move, something just does not smell right.

The question, therefore, is: Is there anything more to it than meets the eye?

 

Tragic crash of MH 17 – is it a ‘false flag’? And, if it is a False Flag, then who benefits – Cui bono?

It certainly is beginning to look like a “False Flag” event. The real question is – Cui bono?

The Ukrainian conflict, which has been ongoing since March had almost vanished from the front pages of corporate controlled western print and broadcast media and their followers in developing world for whom investigative journalism means parroting the narrative set by AFP, Reuters, AP, BBC etc., without an iota of independent thinking.

So the conflict which has been exacting a deadly toll on the population of eastern Ukraine at the hands of Kiev Govt., for the sole crime of them being Russian-speaking population, suddenly made the front pages again not because of plight of these civilians but because of the crash of Malaysia airline flight MH17 with the loss of 298 lives that were on the plane.

Here is what is known so far. It was a routine flight from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur. After entering the Ukrainian space, it did follow the usual flight path that was followed earlier in the week. But at some point, the flight was diverted from its usual route and veered more to the north side which put it right in the middle of the war zone.

The flight path for MH17:

The flight which was at the height of 10,600 m was then ordered to drop down to 10,300 m. It was at this point the flight was shot down by an anti-aircraft missile.

And here are the flight paths other airlines were scheduled to take on July 17 but were re-routed.

There are several questions that need to be answered:

1.    Why did the flight deviated from its normal path which put it right in the closed airspace over the war zone?

2.    Why was it ordered to drop to the height of 10,300 m?

3.    And finally, was it brought down by the missile or something else, maybe an air-to-air missile fired by Ukrainian SU-25 as rumors on the Internet seem to suggest?

Let us consider various versions first.

The Ukrainian Version:

Kiev regime did not clarify why the flight was diverted over the war zone and why was it asked to drop to the height of 10,300m. But, within half an hour of the crash, Kiev junta came out with the statement stating that separatists backed by Russia, had fired at the aircraft by using BUK-M anti-aircraft missile system.

Here is the BUK system.

According to military experts, BUK system is a complex of three vehicles and requires extensive technical expertise to operate it.

The Pro-Russian separatists’ version:

The separatists denied shooting down the aircraft saying that they have neither the system nor the capabilities and blamed the Kiev govt. for shooting down the plane with Anti-Aircraft missile. The commander of rebels, Igor Strelkov, made an interesting observation: he claimed that two SU-25 had accompanied the MH17 flight before it crashed.

The western Media version:

Western print and broadcast media, without bothering to take the rational approach of investigation and then conclusions based on it, rushed to blame Russia and the separatists by taking recourse to emotional approach that Russia did it and Putin is evil.

The Russian version:

Russia flatly denied that it had anything to do with the crash of MH17.

The Questions:

The question now is: what benefits would the separatist have by downing the passenger airliner?
The answer is none. Zippo, Zero, Zilch, Nada. They don't have any incentive to bring sympathy of the world community for the brutal fascist regime of oligarchs, who are not only committing atrocities against the citizens of eastern Ukraine but advocating ethnic cleansing of Russian speaking population of the Donetsk and Lugansk. 


The next question: Do the separatists have the technical expertise to operate such a sophisticated system? The answer is ‘NO’. It is a highly sophisticated and complex piece of weapon that needs thorough training and expertise to operate.  The separatists don't have such expertise. Even US experts have concluded that Separatist, in the first place, do not have such capabilities. The only thing that they have is a “MANPAD” - a portable air defense system with a maximum ceiling of approx.4000 m. The plane was flying at the height of 10,300 m, which puts it certainly out of range of a MANPAD.

Next question: Is there any benefit to Kiev in this tragedy?  Certainly ‘YES’. The tragedy gives them a chance to not only deflect the attention from the humiliating losses suffered in the cauldron, but also a chance to divert the attention of people from the exploding economic hardships - courtesy of IMF conditions for a $17B loan package – by blaming everything on Russia.

It also gives a chance for Kiev's backers – US, EU and NATO - to try to get their foot on the Ukrainian soil, which they have been trying so hard for the last 20 years. Victoria Nuland, Assistant Secretary of State for Europe and Eurasian Union,  admitted in December 2013 that US has invested 5 billion dollars to achieve the regime change in Ukraine and bring it within EU and NATO's fold. Their ultimate aim is to encircle Russia, weaken it to get the control of its resources, and maintain US hegemony forever – all as per Wolfowitz doctrine.

Ukrainian President Poroshenko is already howling to get NATO involved in this. British Govt. has pledged more military assistance to Kiev. Internet is rife with buzz that foreign mercenaries are already active in the war zone. The tragedy would, then, give Poroshenko a chance to legalize their presence - a presence which NATO is yearning for - and use them to crush or ethnically cleanse the eastern regions of the hated “Moskals”.

But, much to the discomfort of the Kiev regime, the mounting evidence leading to the crash of MH17, is now beginning to point the finger towards Kiev. Once the aircraft entered Ukrainian airspace, it was under the control of Kiev ATC. There was no way it could have been in contact with either Donetsk or Lugansk airport as there are no communication towers due to fighting. So the order for re-routing to north and make it pass over Donetsk region must have come from Kiev ATC. Who issued that order?

Second, there is a very strange case of Spanish ATC by the name of Carlos, who was live tweeting that it was shot down by Kiev regime.  A curious thing about his tweets was that he mentions two SU-25 were following MH17. The tweeter account of Carlos - who tweets as @Spainbuca -  is now deleted.

Third, how did the Kiev regime knew within half an hour about what kind of missile took down the airliner?

And, fourth, who issued the order to fire the missile?

In order to bolster its case, Kiev regime released the recording of the ‘communication among separatists’ claiming responsibility for shooting down flight MH17. The so-called recording has now been thoroughly debunked as being a fraud made up of several audio segments which were then combined together to make the whole segment.

Kiev regime will be of no use at all in solving this mystery as they have all the motivation and incentive to hinder, obfuscate and misdirect the investigation in order to maintain their narrative that responsibility for downing MH17 lies with the separatists. The Kiev authorities have already confiscated radar data and radio traffic between ATC and the pilots. We may never know what the data reveals because whatever version would come from Kiev will certainly be a doctored one – one that fits regime's and its backers' narrative.

The only keys to solve the crash of MH17 are now with the black boxes and intelligence agencies - both Russian and American.

Russian authorities have already come out with the statement that the missile came from a BUK battery and they were recording the moment BUK's radar became operational. Since pro-Russian separatists do not have BUK system, the missile most certainly came from the battery deployed by Kiev regime. Moreover, the regime was recently reported to have moved a BUK  battery to Donetsk area. The question is: Why would Keiv move the BUK battery since separatists don't have air force?

Russian defense ministry has gone further and published the space images of south eastern Ukraine where fighting is taking place. It shows that Ukraine moved three to four BUK M1 batteries in the Donetsk area. It also shows a Ukrainian SU-25 speeding up to MH17. Why? That's a big question. It also confirms what Carlos, Spanish ATC at the Borispol airport in Kiev Oblast, was tweeting - that there were two SU-25 accompanying MH17. Why? The key to the mystery lies in those answers.

Ukrainian Su-25 fighter detected in close approach to MH17 before crash - Moscow

The mystery is slowly unraveling and beginning to point the needle of suspicion in the direction of Kiev. Slowly it is becoming apparent that the tragedy of MH17 might have been a false flag event – an event that benefits Kiev regime and its backers in the short run.