Back in April 2015, when Venezuela still had a somewhat functioning economy and hyperinflation was not yet rampant, the cash-strapped country quietly conducted a little-noticed gold-for-cash swap with Citigroup as part of which president Nicolas Maduro converted part of his nation's gold reserves into at least $1 billion in cash through a swap with Citibank.

As Reuters reported then, the deal would make more foreign currency available to President Nicolas Maduro's socialist government as the OPEC nation struggled with soaring consumer prices, chronic shortages and a shrinking economy worsened by low oil prices.

Mexico will support Pemex by injecting US$3.6 billion into the debt-laden state-held oil firm, including by refinancing debt and cutting taxes, Mexican officials said on Friday.

The Mexican government, however, will not take on new debt for Pemex, Reuters quoted officials as saying at a regular press conference.

The Mexican state oil firm has a total of US$106 billion in financial debt.

If Pemex needs more capital injection, the government will provide it, according to Finance Minister Carlos Urzua.

The fallout from the Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro has continued years after the last games have ended. The debt incurred by the local Olympic organizing committee, Rio 2016, has now increased dramatically to more than three times its original estimate, according to a new report by Deadspin.

The debt was listed at $32 million in December 2016 and now, a little more than two years later, it has more than tripled to $113 million. The Brazilian government and the IOC have both refused to help the local organizing committee dispatch of its debts.

Bills introduced in the Tennessee legislature would define gold and silver specie as legal tender and eliminate sales taxes levied on it. Passage of these bills would pave the way for Tennessee residents to use gold and silver in everyday transactions, a foundational step for the people to undermine the Federal Reserve’s monopoly on money.

Philip Hammond will not visit China this weekend amid reports that Beijing pulled out of trade talks after Defence Secretary Gavin Williamson threatened to deploy a warship in the Pacific.

The Chancellor was expected to meet Chinese vice premier Hu Chunhua, but Treasury sources said the trip was never confirmed.

It follows reports in the Sun newspaper that Mr Hu scrapped the plans hours after Mr Williamson announced that he would be sending HMS Queen Elizabeth to the Pacific region.

This ought to win Deutsche Bank some badly needed good will with global prosecutors investigating the bank for its involvement in various financial frauds - not to mention Financial Services Committee Chairwoman Maxine Waters.

According to a Bloomberg report on Friday, DB has decided - apparently with the blessing of a federally appointed monitor - that it won't pay out the $4 billion balance on its commitment to help distressed homeowners impacted by the housing collapse. The bank had agreed to spend billions of dollars on consumer relief during the waning days of the Obama administration as part of a massive settlement with the DOJ over its role in selling mortgages.

Former Goldman banker Roger Ng has been sitting in a Malaysian jail cell since he was arrested in November and charged with abetting his employer's efforts to mislead investors in the three Goldman-organized bond offerings that helped capitalize the doomed Malaysian sovereign wealth fund 1MDB, which is at the center of what the DOJ alleges was a more than $4 billion fraud. But soon, Ng will find himself free on bail back in the US, now that the DOJ's extradition request has been granted by the Malaysian government.

India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi warned Pakistan on Friday to expect a strong response to a suicide attack that killed 44 paramilitary policemen in Kashmir, ratcheting up tension between the nuclear-armed neighbours.

The car bomb attack on a security convoy on Thursday was the worst in decades of insurgency in the disputed region. India said it had “incontrovertible evidence” of Pakistani involvement, a statement quickly rejected by Islamabad.

“We will give a befitting reply, our neighbour will not be allowed to de-stabilise us,” Modi said in a speech, after meeting security advisers to discuss options.

The attack comes months before national elections in India.

The Pakistan-based Islamist militant group Jaish-e-Mohammad (JeM) claimed responsibility soon after a suicide bomber rammed an explosives-laden car into a bus carrying police personnel.

Russia is not afraid of sanctions and new penalties won’t hugely harm the economy, according to Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev. However, he added that the measures may slow development.

The latest bill pushing a fresh round of economic sanctions against Moscow was introduced to US Congress by Senators Lindsey Graham and Bob Menendez. It is the second attempt to expand anti-Russia penalties after the previous version was defeated last year. If approved, the new package will target Russia’s banking and energy sectors, as well as its foreign debt.

A starker reality is that the US has aided and abetted a criminal, genocidal war against Yemen, mostly carried out by Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and several allies. From the beginning, this war has been a nexus of war crimes that included using cluster bombs on civilian targets, such as weddings, funerals, hospitals, and schools. The US was involved from the start in selecting those and other targets. The US provided intelligence, maintenance, mid-air refueling, and support for a naval blockade (an act of war) that helped starve a country that has always needed to import food to survive.

India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi warned Pakistan on Friday to expect a strong response to a suicide attack that killed 44 paramilitary policemen in Kashmir, ratcheting up tension between the nuclear-armed neighbours.

The car bomb attack on a security convoy on Thursday was the worst in decades of insurgency in the disputed region. India said it had “incontrovertible evidence” of Pakistani involvement, a statement quickly rejected by Islamabad.

“We will give a befitting reply, our neighbour will not be allowed to de-stabilise us,” Modi said in a speech, after meeting security advisers to discuss options.

The attack comes months before national elections in India.

The Pakistan-based Islamist militant group Jaish-e-Mohammad (JeM) claimed responsibility soon after a suicide bomber rammed an explosives-laden car into a bus carrying police personnel.

A bipartisan team of US senators is preparing to hit Russia with additional sanctions over its 2016 US election interference and military operations in Syria and Ukraine.

Sens. Bob Menendez (D-N.J.) and Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) are spearheading the measure, called the Defending American Security from Kremlin Aggression Act, which includes a wide range of financial penalties targeting Russia's energy complex, financial industry and "political figures, oligarchs, and family members and other persons that facilitate illicit and corrupt activities, directly or indirectly, on behalf of Vladimir Putin," reported The Independent.

Late last year, DoubleLine's Jeff Gundlach warned that as a result of rising hedging costs, US Treasury bonds have become increasingly unattractive to foreign buyers. This can be seen in the chart below which shows the yield on the 10Y US TSY unhedged, and also hedged into Yen and Euros. In the latter two cases, the yield went from over 3%, to negative as a result of the gaping rate differential between the Fed and ECB or BOJ.

CARACAS, February 16. /TASS/. The fourth center for collecting humanitarian aid for Venezuela is being established in the US city of Miami, Venezuelan opposition leader Juan Guaido wrote on his official Twitter account.

READ ALSO
Venezuelan opposition leader Juan Guaido
Opposition to take all measures for humanitarian aid to get into Venezuela
"We announce opening a center for collecting humanitarian aid in Miami, so that Venezuelans all around the world can join the movement for Venezuela," Guaido said.

On February 2 Guaido announced opening three checkpoints for accepting foreign humanitarian aid. The three checkpoints are in Cucuta, on the border with Brazil and on an island in the Caribbean. He did not rule out that another checkpoint may be opened on the territory of Colombia but did not specify the details.

The top Hungarian diplomat's remarks came during his joint press conference with US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo who, in particular, warned Hungary not to let Russian President Vladimir Putin "drive wedges between friends" in NATO.

Speaking at a joint news conference with US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo in Budapest on Monday, Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto specifically pointed out what he described as Western countries' hypocritical stance toward Moscow.

"As for Russia – and I have told the State Secretary about this – there is enormous hypocrisy and political correctness in the European political arena," Szijjarto said.

READ MORE: Hungary Refuses to Dance to US Tune, Step Up Pressure on Russia — Reports

He recalled that neither Hungarian nor central European energy companies are partnering with the Russian corporation Gazprom in the Nord Stream 2 project.

“Many Germans cannot be identified as rich. There are many citizens living on welfare, pensioners, lonely and older people… In some parts of the country, especially in the East, unemployment rate totals eight percent,” Professor Johannes Ringel from Leipzig’s University told Russia’s state TV channel Rossiya 2.

In recent weeks, the chances of a dreaded no-deal Brexit occurring have increased exponentially ahead of the deadline on March 29th.

A new study has looked into that scenario's potential impact on jobs across the world. Statista's Niall McCarthy notes that the analysis was carried out by the Halle Institute for Economic Research (IWH), focusing on 56 industrial sectors across 43 countries while assuming a 25 percent drop in EU exports to the UK in the event of a hard Brexit.

It found that Germany could lose the most jobs with around 103,000 threatened if the UK crashes out of the EU with no deal.

t’s been the opinion here at CFN that Mr. McCabe and a long list of DOJ / FBI / and Intel employees would eventually be summoned to grand juries on charges ranging from lying to their Internal Affairs colleagues all the way to sedition. Those worms now seem to be turning. Both house and senate committees investigating the Russia narrative declared that they turned up no evidence for it.

And late this week, William Barr was confirmed as a new Attorney General, meaning the extreme case of bureaucratic constipation in that department may be resolving in a shitstorm of counter-revelations and prosecutions in what amounted to an attempted coup d’etat. A lot of the evidence for that is already public and overwhelming.

But what will happen in the meantime as their enablers are dragged into courts of law to answer for their roguery?

This just shows what can happen when you let crazy people run a state for several decades...

The shrill voices of climate change hucksters get louder every day. Supposedly the world will end in 12 years. It won't.

Someone asked me on Twitter today "who are you to debate climate scientists."

Well, who are priests and clergy to debate Darwinism? Should we prevent debate that does not suit us?

Here's a widely held view: Climate Change Denial Should Be a Crime

In 1663, leading scientists all thought the sun revolved around the earth. The Catholic Church Convicted Galileo of Heresy for disputing the claim.

Supposedly, we are brighter today.

But why do we have scientists faking data and suppressing data that does not meet the cause?

Climategate
The Climate Scandal of the Decade involves fundamentally flawed methods and data manipulation to produce a "hockey stick" rise in temperatures.

The International Monetary Fund is reportedly making plans for the "day after" embattled President Nicolas Maduro's fall, according to Bloomberg. Though there's been little momentum in military defections following US-backed opposition leader Juan Guaido's offer of amnesty to any army officer that switches loyalties, Washington sanctions have effectively strangled state-owned PDVSA's access to global markets. News of IMF maneuvering also comes amidst fresh reports the US is amassing aircraft, troops and armored vehicles on the Venezuelan border under the pretext of getting humanitarian aid into the country.

The only significant cash flow that remains after the oil sanctions is through India, Venezuela’s second-biggest oil market after the United States, which still recognizes the Maduro government, and is now reportedly seeking to avoid purchases through US banks and even financial institutions with a heavy US presence.

A bipartisan team of US senators is preparing to hit Russia with additional sanctions over its 2016 US election interference and military operations in Syria and Ukraine.

Sens. Bob Menendez (D-N.J.) and Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) are spearheading the measure, called the Defending American Security from Kremlin Aggression Act, which includes a wide range of financial penalties targeting Russia's energy complex, financial industry and "political figures, oligarchs, and family members and other persons that facilitate illicit and corrupt activities, directly or indirectly, on behalf of Vladimir Putin," reported The Independent.

Threats of the sanctions rocked Russian stock and government bond markets at the end of the week, and the country's debt insurance costs jumped alongside FX volatility.

Moscow has responded to the prospect of new sanctions with anger.

A former minister told Russians to prepare for the worst outcome; the Kremlin accused the US of “racketeering.”

What dreamers they were! They imagined a kind of global power that would leave even Rome at its Augustan height in the shade. They imagined a world made for one, a planet that could be swallowed by a single great power. No, not just great, but beyond anything ever seen before — one that would build (as its National Security Strategy put it in 2002) a military “beyond challenge.” Let’s be clear on that: no future power, or even bloc of powers, would ever be allowed to challenge it again.

And, in retrospect, can you completely blame them? I mean, it seemed so obvious then that we — the United States of America — were the best and the last. We had, after all, outclassed and outlasted every imperial power since the beginning of time. Even that other menacing superpower of the Cold War era, the Soviet Union, the “Evil Empire” that refused to stand down for almost half a century, had gone up in a puff of smoke.

However, successful collective security is mainly on direct dependence on three conditions:

The states must be roughly equal, or at least there must be no preponderant power.

All states must be willing to share the cost and responsibility of defending one another.

There must be an international body that has the moral authority and military capacity to take effective action.

Introduction:

Nuclear submarines are the leading strike force of a fleet, capable of covertly controlling the expanses of the world’s oceans and quickly deploying in the required directions. They deliver unexpected and powerful strikes from the depths of the ocean on both sea and land targets.

The main striking force of the Russian Navy is nuclear submarines armed with ballistic and cruise missiles with nuclear warheads. They are constantly in various parts of the world’s oceans, ready for immediate use of their strategic weapons. Submarines, armed with cruise missiles, are aimed mainly at combating the enemy’s large surface ships and strike on the enemy’s coastal infrastructure. Torpedo nuclear submarines are used to disrupt the enemy’s underwater and surface communications and in the defense system against the underwater threat, as well as to escort surface ships and missile submarines.

The top brass of the Obama FBI went to great lengths to justify their decision not to recommend charges against former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton for mishandling classified information, according to Judicial Watch, which obtained evidence that the agency created a 'chart' of Clinton's offenses.

The newly obtained emails came in response to a court ordered Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request that the DOJ had previously ignored.

Via Judicial Watch (emphasis ours):

This ought to win Deutsche Bank some badly needed good will with global prosecutors investigating the bank for its involvement in various financial frauds - not to mention Financial Services Committee Chairwoman Maxine Waters.

According to a Bloomberg report on Friday, DB has decided - apparently with the blessing of a federally appointed monitor - that it won't pay out the $4 billion balance on its commitment to help distressed homeowners impacted by the housing collapse. The bank had agreed to spend billions of dollars on consumer relief during the waning days of the Obama administration as part of a massive settlement with the DOJ over its role in selling mortgages.

Instead, the bank will use the money on providing new loans.

The bank's monitor said the decision might disappoint some homeowners who had reached out to the bank for relief over the past two years...but, to be fair, DB has already paid out $1.5 billion as part of the program.

Employees at a drug company accused of bribing doctors rapped and danced around a person dressed as a bottle of the highly addictive fentanyl spray in a video meant to motivate sales reps to push the drug.

The video was shown to jurors this week in the closely watched trial in Boston of wealthy Insys Therapeutics Inc. Founder John Kapoor and four other onetime executives, including a former exotic dancer who prosecutors say was hired as a regional sales manager even though she had no pharmaceutical experience.

They’re charged with scheming to pay doctors bribes and kickbacks in exchange for prescriptions of the opioid meant for cancer patients with severe pain. Kapoor and the other former executives of the Chandler, Arizona-based company have denied all wrongdoing.

The video, titled “Great by Choice,” was shown during a national sales meeting in 2015 to encourage employees to talk doctors into prescribing higher doses, prosecutors said.

U.S. Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez cheered the decision by Amazon.com Inc to scrap its plans to build an outpost in New York that could have created 25,000 jobs

With plans in place to file bankruptcy later this month, Payless ShoeSource Inc. will close all of its store locations as it plans to liquidate, Reuters reported.

The discount shoe retailer will close all of its approximately 2,300 store locations, sources told the outlet. The company is said to be in the process of initiating a going-out-of-business sales in the next week.

Payless had been trying to locate a buyer for the sale of its company, but a deal has not been struck with any promising investor. The company has made the decision to move toward liquidation, hoping for a buyer to come forth after it files for bankruptcy, reports Reuters.

Iranian authorities, together with four local banks and Ghoghnoos, have launched the PayMon cryptocurrency backed by gold reserves, aiming to bypass international sanctions. No other country has ever used gold reserves to back a cryptocurrency. PayMon is expected to be presented on the Iranian Fara Bourse OTC securities market.

US National Security Advisor John Bolton has warned countries and companies against buying crude oil from Venezuela, after the Latin American country said it wants to sell more oil to the fast-growing Indian market.

In a tweet with a Bloomberg article on Venezuelan-Indian oil relations attached, Bolton wrote: “Nations and firms that support Maduro’s theft of Venezuelan resources will not be forgotten. The United States will continue to use all of its powers to preserve the Venezuelan people’s azsets and we encourage all nations to work together to do the same.”

The US national debt has surpassed the 22 trillion dollar mark for the first time; a milestone that experts have warned is further evidence of the deterioration of the nation’s finances and could jeopardise the economic security of every American.

The Treasury Department's daily statement showed Tuesday that the total outstanding public debt now stands at $22.012 trillion. It stood at $19.95 trillion when President Donald Trump took office on 20 Jan 2017

Even as the ‘Russiagate’ probe crumbled in the US Senate, five senators resurrected a ‘sanctions bill from hell’ against Russia. What are the prospects of it passing, and does it even need to in order to achieve its objective?

The “Defending American Security from Kremlin Aggression (DASKA)” Act, also known as Senate Resolution 482, was announced on Wednesday by the leading Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations committee, Bob Menendez (D-New Jersey). It is a rehash of the August 2018 bill (S. 3336) proposed by Menendez and Lindsey Graham (R-South Carolina), called the “sanctions bill from hell” at the time.