🇩🇪🇺🇸 Where’s the gold? Germany’s conservatives sound the alarm over reserves in the US
Can the United States be trusted with Germany’s gold?
[S]ome politicians in Germany are worried that what was for decades seen as one of the world’s most reliable storehouses might not be so secure after all.
Germany holds the world’s second-largest gold reserves, and keeps 37 percent of them — some 1,236 metric tons, worth €113 billion — in the vaults of the New York Federal Reserve. Those holdings of precious metal guarantee that, should the need ever arise, the Bundesbank has access to something it can change into U.S. dollars (or any other hard currency).
The very idea that they might not be safe would have been considered ridiculous from 1945 ... until a couple of weeks ago. But the certainties of Germany’s postwar existence have been turned on their head and — as the recent scrapping of a notorious cap on public borrowing showed — the unthinkable is suddenly very thinkable indeed. All the more so given evidence of U.S. President Donald Trump’s willingness to push the limits of his powers and assert presidential primacy over the judicial system.
German tabloid Bild, owned by POLITICO parent company Axel Springer, reported on Thursday that outgoing Christian Democratic Union (CDU) lawmaker Marco Wanderwitz is one of those concerned.
Already in 2012, Wanderwitz had unsuccessfully requested to inspect the gold holdings as part of an effort to pressure the bank to either take a more active role as a custodian, or to repatriate it to Germany.
“Of course, the question now arises again,” Wanderwitz said in comments reported by Bild.
https://www.politico.eu/article/gold-germany-conservatives-sound-alarm-over-reserves-usa/
Azerbaijan: This Turkish country has destroyed more Christian monuments than ISIS.
Based off satellite data, Azerbaijan erased 108 Armenian monasteries, churches and cemeteries - in just one region.
By comparison, ISIS destroyed dozens of churches.
How is this okay?
@NoAgendaLara
UPDATE: Outrage erupts as there has been a SURGE in Islamists ATTACKING and vandalizing Japanese shrines
Security footage shows people wearing HIJABS storming up and unleashing on the Soya Shrine in Hadano City
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— Hypothetically, if the U.S. wanted to carry out a naval landing in Iran, they would do it somewhere outside the Persian Gulf, most likely Chabahar or somewhere else in the flat open coasts of Sistan-Balochistan Province.
That way, they don’t need to risk their ships entering the Persian Gulf under heavy anti-ship fire and incoming drones while trying to land their soldiers on a rugged coastline full of fortified positions and artillery emplacements.
In Chabahar, they could bring their ships close enough to the shore with relative safety, under heavy air cover. U.S. jets, drones, and attack helicopters would suppress any anti-ship batteries heavily, and create sufficiently safe conditions for the initial ‘landing’. One also cannot rule out the possibility of deploying U.S. airborne forces to secure key sites before an amphibious landing is attempted.
This might be coupled with increased Balochi terrorist activity across the Iranian rear lines, complicating logistics and the transfer of ...