Deutsche Bank: It’s Time to Buy Gold

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Gold is still expensive, but rising economic risks and market turmoil mean investors should buy it for insurance, Deutsche Bank said Friday.

The recovery since the global and European financial crises had put the price of gold under some pressure. The yellow metal, which some analysts view as a safe haven or as a protection against rising inflation, typically underperforms during periods when the economy is growing or inflation is low. However, in a note issued Friday, the German Bank said economic signs are pointing in gold’s favor.

“There are rising stresses in the global financial system; in particular the rising risk of a U.S. corporate default cycle and the risk of a sharp one-off renminbi devaluation due to the sharp increase in China’s capital outflows,” Deutsche Bank added.”Buying some gold as ‘insurance’ is warranted.”

However, even though gold has fallen from levels over $1,900 an ounce in 2011 to around $1,200 an ounce currently, Deutsche Bank said it still looks expensive, ranking as the most expensive commodity relative to its 15-year trading history.

“A bit like insurance, which is often a grudge purchase for many, some investors may balk at the current levels,” it said. “We would, however, argue that given the plethora of negative deposit rates globally, the holding cost of gold is now negligible in many jurisdictions, and therefore gold deserves to be trading at elevated levels versus many other assets.” (Read more from “Deutsche Bank: It’s Time to Buy Gold” HERE)

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Netanyahu Quotes Bible, Voices Strong Support for Gay Rights

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Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu showed his support on the Knesset’s first designated LGBT Rights Day on Tuesday.

Netanyahu rarely appears in the legislature on Tuesdays, a day on which it usually does not hold important votes, but he arrived specially to participate in LGBT Rights Day, during which discussions of the topic were held in the plenum and committees.

The prime minister briefly addressed the plenum: “I know that there were important and lengthy discussions today, and I came here in the middle of my schedule, which was no less busy, to say one sentence to the members of the LGBT community: ‘Every man was created in the image of God.’ That is the idea brought by our nation to mankind thousands of years ago, and it is the principle that must guide our national lives today.” (Read more from “Netanyahu Quotes Bible, Voices Strong Support for Gay Rights” HERE)

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China Warns U.S. After Trump Wins Nevada Caucus

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China warned the United States on Wednesday not to adopt punitive currency policies that could disrupt U.S.-China relations after Donald Trump’s win in the Nevada caucus.

Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying told reporters in Beijing that “we are following with interest the U.S. presidential election.”

Hua was asked about China’s response to a possible Trump presidency and his announced plan to punish China for currency manipulation with a tax on Chinese goods.

“Since it belongs to the domestic affair of the U.S., I am not going to make comments on specific remarks by the relevant candidate,” she said.

“But I want to stress that China and the U.S., as world’s largest developing and developed countries, shoulder major responsibilities in safeguarding world peace, stability and security and driving world development,” the spokeswoman added. (Read more from “China Warns U.S. After Trump Wins Nevada Caucus” HERE)

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Ahead of Election, Iran’s Leader Warns of Western ‘Plot’

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By Samia Nakhoul. Iran’s top leader warned voters on Wednesday the West was plotting to influence elections pitting centrists close to President Hassan Rouhani against conservative hardliners in a contest that could shape the Islamic Republic for years to come.

In remarks reflecting an abiding mistrust of Rouhani’s rapprochement with the West, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said he was confident Iranians would vote in favor of keeping Iran’s anti-Western stance on Friday in the first elections since last year’s nuclear accord with world powers.

Rouhani’s allies, who hope the deal will hasten Iran’s opening up to the world after years of sanctions, have come under increasing pressure in the election campaign from hardliners who accuse them of links to Western powers including the United States and Britain.

Those accusations seek to tap into Iranians’ wariness of Western motives and memories of a 1953 coup against nationalist prime minister Mohammad Mossadegh that was orchestrated by the United States and Britain and strengthened the Shah’s rule. (Read more from “Ahead of Election, Iran’s Leader Warns of Western ‘Plot'” HERE)

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Iran Arrests Elderly Father of Jailed U.S. Citizen

By Yeganeh Torbati. Iranian authorities this week arrested the elderly father of an American jailed in Iran since October, the man’s family said on Wednesday.

Siamak Namazi, a dual U.S.-Iranian citizen, was detained by Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps in October while in Iran visiting family. Officials have yet to announce charges against him.

Baquer Namazi, Siamak’s father, was arrested late on Monday in Tehran, his wife Effie Namazi said in a Facebook post on Wednesday. The 80-year-old Namazi, also a dual Iranian-American citizen, was taken to Evin Prison, where his son is also being held, she said.

Asked at a Senate hearing about the elder Namazi’s arrest, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said: “I am very familiar with this and I am engaged on it specifically, but I am not permitted due to privacy reasons to go into details here.” (Read more from ” Iran Arrests Elderly Father of Jailed U.S. Citizen” HERE)

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North Korea Just Issued Another Apocalyptic Threat to the U.S.

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North Korea has threatened to attack ‘mainland America’ if the U.S. carries out a planned military drill with South Korean troops next month.

The secretive state has reacted with anger after it was revealed more than 300,000 American and South Korean troops were planning to hold their biggest ever annual exercise following the North’s nuclear tests earlier this year.

It is said the parallel Key Resolve and Foal Eagle exercises will include a staged ‘pre-emptive strike’ against the North – apparently leaving leader Kim Jong-Un seething.

Pyongyang has said if there is even a ‘slight sign’ of such exercises taking place, it will use all its might to hit back – claiming the first target would be South Korea’s presidential Blue House, while U.S. military bases in Asia and in America would be its secondary targets.

The Supreme Command of the Korean People’s Army said in a statement carried by state media: ‘All the powerful strategic and tactical strike means of our revolutionary armed forces will go into preemptive and just operation to beat back the enemy forces to the last man if there is a slight sign of their special operation forces and equipment moving to carry out the so-called ‘beheading operation’ and ‘high-density strike’.’ (Read more from “North Korea Just Issued a Terrifying Threat to the U.S.” HERE)

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Alleged Terrorist’s Strange Surveillance Video Has Authorities Thinking the Worst

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Belgian authorities fear the Islamic State’s next move after obtaining hours of surveillance footage of a senior nuclear official at the apartment of an alleged terrorist.

Belgian newspaper La Dernière Heure Wednesday reported that the footage was found in a raid of Mohamed Bakkali’s Brussels apartment. Bakkali is held on charges of terrorist activity and murder for his alleged involvement in the Nov. 13 Paris attacks, which took 130 lives . . .

Edwin Lyman, senior scientist at the Union of Concerned Scientists, told The Daily Caller News Foundation that an attack on a nuclear power plant could have catastrophic consequences, but also, thankfully, require extensive knowledge of the target.

“A terrorist attack on a nuclear power plant could conceivably result in an event as catastrophic as a severe accident like Chernobyl or Fukushima,” Lyman told TheDCNF in an emailed statement. “It’s not clear to me what information they could glean from the surveillance of the home of a nuclear official alone, unless they were planning to kidnap him and extract information.”

It wouldn’t be the first time terrorists have considered an attack on a power plant. Several attempts in countries such as Argentina, Russia and South Korea have failed. The 9/11 Commission Report also reported that Al Qaida’s original plan included U.S. power plants. (Read more from “Alleged Terrorist’s Strange Surveillance Video Has Authorities Thinking the Worst” HERE)

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U.S. Scrambles to Contain Growing ISIS Threat in Libya

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The Islamic State’s branch in Libya is deepening its reach across a wide area of Africa, attracting new recruits from countries like Senegal that had been largely immune to the jihadist propaganda — and forcing the African authorities and their Western allies to increase efforts to combat the fast-moving threat.

The American airstrikes in northwestern Libya on Friday, which demolished an Islamic State training camp and were aimed at a top Tunisian operative, underscore the problem, Western officials said. The more than three dozen suspected Islamic State fighters killed in the bombing were recruited from Tunisia and other African countries, officials said, and were believed to be rehearsing an attack against Western targets.

Even as American intelligence agencies say the number of Islamic State fighters in Iraq and Syria has dropped to about 25,000 from a high of about 31,500, partly because of the United States-led air campaign there, the group’s ranks in Libya have roughly doubled in the same period, to about 6,500 fighters. More than a dozen American and allied officials spoke of their growing concern about the militant organization’s expanding reach from Libya and across Africa on rules of anonymity because the discussions involved intelligence and military planning.

Islamic State leaders in Syria are telling recruits traveling north from West African nations like Senegal and Chad, as well as others streaming up through Sudan in eastern Africa, not to press on to the Middle East. Instead, they are being told to stay put in Libya. American intelligence officials, who described the recent orders from Islamic State leaders, say the organization’s immediate goal is to carve out a new caliphate in Libya, and there are signs the affiliate is trying to establish statelike institutions there. (Read more from “U.S. Scrambles to Contain Growing ISIS Threat in Libya” HERE)

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5,000 Islamic State Trained Jihadis Could Be on This Continent

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Up to 5,000 jihadis could be at large in Europe after returning from Islamic State training camps in the Middle East, the head of Europe’s police agency has warned.

Europol head Rob Wainwright said that between 3,000 and 5,000 jihadis could have re-entered the continent after training with the terror group in Syria and Iraq.

Speaking to German paper Neue Osnabrücker Zeitung, Mr Wainwright said the risk of a terror attack on the continent was now the highest for many years.

“Europe is currently facing the highest terror threat in more than ten years,” he said. “We can expect Isil or other religious terror groups to stage an attack somewhere in Europe with the aim of achieving mass casualties among the civilian population.”

Mr Wainwright, who previously served as head of Britain’s National Crime Intelligence Service (NCIS) and Serious Organised Crime Agency (SOCA), added that the growing number of militants in Europe “presents EU member states with completely new challenges”. (Read more from “5,000 Islamic State Trained Jihadis Could Be in This Continent” HERE)

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Archaeologists Discover 7,000-Year-Old Settlement in Jerusalem

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Photo Credit: Deutsche Welle
Archaeologists in Jerusalem have uncovered an ancient settlement which dates back as far as 7,000 years, they announced on Wednesday. They are calling it the oldest discovery of its kind in the area.

“This is the first time we found architecture of this kind in Jerusalem itself,” said Ronit Lupu, director of excavations for Israel’s Antiquities Authority. “We are talking about an established society, very well organized, with settlement, with cemeteries.”

The excavation exposed two houses with well-preserved remains and floors containing pottery vessels, flint tools and a basalt bowl. Lupu said these items are representative of the early Chalcolithic period, which began around 5,000 BC.

In the Chalcolithic period, humans were “still using stone tools, but began to create high-level ceramics and for the first time, copper tools as well,” said Lupu.

Small settlements from the period have been discovered in parts of Israel and Jordan, but only a few remnants had previously been unearthed in Jerusalem. (Read more from “Archaeologists Discover 7,000-Year-Old Settlement in Jerusalem” HERE)

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Storm Clouds Gathering: Turkey Viciously Attacks Only Syrian Group Backed by Both Putin and U.S., Risking Direct Conflict With Russia

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By Selcan Hacaoglu. There’s only one major group of combatants in the Syrian war that’s backed by both Russia and the U.S. — and now Turkey is attacking it.

Since the weekend, Turkey has unleashed its 155-millimeter heavy guns across the border with Syria. The targets are Kurdish forces, whose recent advance is a key part of the Russian plan to extend President Bashar al-Assad’s control over Syria. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Wednesday refused to stop the shelling and said Turkey was acting in self-defense.

Syria’s five-year war has turned into a tangled web of proxy conflicts between global and regional powers, with a growing risk that some of them could clash directly. Right now the most dangerous flashpoint is between Russia and NATO member Turkey, which shot down a Russian plane in November. Since then tensions have steadily built as the Assad-Russia alliance — with help from the Kurds — threatens to surround Turkish-backed rebels in Aleppo, Syria’s biggest city.

“Both Russia and Turkey are looking to position for strategic advantage,” Tim Ash, head of emerging-market strategy at Nomura in London, said by e-mail on Monday. “The risk is of an actual Russo-Turkish military clash, which would then threaten to draw in NATO.” (Read more from “Storm Clouds Gathering: Turkey Viciously Attacks Only Syrian Group Backed by Both Putin and U.S., Risking Direct Conflict With Russia” HERE)

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Kurds’ Advance in Syria Divides U.S. And Turkey as Russia Bombs

By Daren Butler. The rapid advance of U.S.-backed Kurdish fighters in northern Syria, taking advantage of Russian air strikes to seize territory near the Turkish border, has infuriated Ankara and threatened to drive a wedge between NATO allies.

Washington has long seen the Syrian Kurdish Democratic Union Party (PYD) and its YPG military wing as its best chance in the battle against Islamic State in Syria – to the chagrin of fellow NATO member Turkey, which sees the group as terrorists and fears it will stir up greater unrest among its own Kurdish minority.

Russian bombing has transformed the five-year-old Syrian civil war in recent weeks, turning the momentum decisively in favor of Moscow’s ally President Bashar al-Assad.

The Syrian army has come within 25 km (15 miles) of the Turkish border and says it aims to seal it off altogether, closing the main lifeline into rebel territory for years and recapturing Aleppo, Syria’s largest city before the war. (Read more from “Kurds’ Advance in Syria Divides U.S. And Turkey as Russia Bombs” HERE)

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