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Ankara will not account for talks it held during the recent SCO summit, the Turkish president has saidTurkey has no obligation to report to the European Union after it took part in a summit of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said on Monday. Earlier, the Turkish leader revealed that Ankara is seeking to join the bloc, which includes Russia and China...."The European Union would keep us out for 52 years, it wouldn’t let us near, and then they would say, ‘Why did he talk with this country, or that country?’" he said, referring to the fact...

Tehran (AsiaNews) – Iran will become a full member of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) with the signing of the memorandum of obligation at a summit in Samarkand, on 15-16 September. “This year, within Uzbekistan's chairmanship, Iran, as an observer state will ... become a full-fledged member of the SCO,” RIA Novosti quoted Uzbek Foreign Minister Vladimir Norov as saying yesterday during a meeting in Moscow. Iran took one step closer to full membership on 17 September last year when its application was accepted 15 years after it was made. On that date, SCO began the country's accession, which usually...

What is the scale of the energy challenge?We got a very shocking sense of the staggering numbers involved in the existential, crippling European crisis earlier today when Norwegian energy giant Equinor echoed what Zoltan Pozsar said in March, warning that “European energy trading risks grinding to a halt unless governments extend liquidity to cover margin calls of at least $1.5 trillion." As Bloomberg put it, in its best non-Zoltan imitation, "aside from inflating bills and fanning inflation, the biggest energy crisis in decades is sucking up capital to guarantee trades amid wild price swings. That’s putting pressure on European Union...

To stimulate the economy, China’s regulators are forcing Chinese banks to meet high loan quotas. To hit the difficult-to-attain targets, ingenious bankers are lending and simultaneously allowing borrowers to deposit identical amounts with their institutions at identical interest rates. Companies no longer want money to launch new projects. Pessimism about the economy dominates thinking in Chinese boardrooms and throughout the rest of society. The big story is not that the Chinese economy is falling apart.

China's economic slowdown has left it with a surplus of natural gas that it is re-selling to energy-strapped Europe, according to a report. Boosted by cargoes from China, Europe's imports of liquefied natural gas jumped 60% year-on-year in the first half of 2002, according to a Nikkei report citing data from research firm Kpler. China's economy has slowed sharply in 2022 as Beijing implemented a strict zero-COVID policy and as a crisis grips the country's highly indebted property sector. Economists think it is likely to fall well short of the government's aim of 5.5% growth. The economic slowdown has left...

BRICS - The president of the BRICS International Forum, Purnima Anand told reporters on Thursday that both Russia and India no longer need the U.S. dollar, as they have "turned to national currencies to conduct mutual settlements," according to Russian state news RT. The BRICS president stated, "We have implemented the mechanism of mutual settlements in rubles and rupees, and there is no need for our countries to use the dollar in mutual settlements. And today a similar mechanism of mutual settlements in rubles and yuan is being developed by China,"...

CHICAGO (BLOOMBERG) - The former head of the JPMorgan Chase & Co precious-metals business and his top gold trader were convicted in Chicago on charges they manipulated markets for years, handing the United States government a win in its long crackdown on bogus "spoofing" orders. Michael Nowak and Gregg Smith were found guilty on Wednesday (Aug 10) by a federal jury after a three-week trial and more than eight days of deliberations. Prosecutors presented evidence that included detailed trading records, chat logs and testimony by former co-workers who "pulled back the curtain" on how Nowak and Smith moved precious-metals prices...

Lawmakers are pushing the Federal Reserve to move swiftly toward issuing a digital dollar, to combat steps from China and others they say could one day threaten the U.S. status as the global reserve currency. The bipartisan group of lawmakers, including Reps. Maxine Waters (D., Calif.) and French Hill (R., Ark.), has sought for the U.S. to counter global competitors launching digital versions of their currencies. The House Financial Services Committee, which both serve on, might vote on related legislation as soon as next month. Ms. Waters has framed competition over new forms of central-bank money as “a new digital...

And once again, as happens often with consequential news in the United States and the West, no one has noticed and no one seems to care. If you’ve blinked over the last month, you may have missed it… China and Russia are taking their shot at the U.S. dollar. And as often happens with consequential news in the United States and the West, no one seems to notice or even care. Since the beginning of the year, I have been writing about the possibility of Russia and China challenging the US dollar’s global reserve status. Now, it’s happening. It shouldn’t...

Since its creation in the mid-2000s, the BRICS group of major emerging economies has promoted extensive cooperation between members, and recently, has begun pushing for a global realignment of geopolitical power to better match members' economic, geographic and demographic potential with their position in the international order. The BRICS group of nations could create a new world reserve currency to better serve their economic interests, former president and prime minister Dmitry Medvedev, who now serves as deputy chairman of Russia's Security Council, has indicated. "The best protection against the rotting euro will be the transition to new payment methods in...

Saudi Arabia, the largest U.S. export market in the Middle East, invited Chinese President Xi to visit Riyadh in March as relations with the U.S. have faltered since Joe Biden was elected, The Wall Street Journal reported.According to a report from CNN, U.S. intelligence agencies have assessed that Saudi Arabia is now actively manufacturing its own ballistic missiles with the help of China, a relationship that could lead to domino effects across Middle East countries. (snip) Saudi Arabia announced in March it was considering accepting the Chinese yuan instead of the US dollar in future transactions. (snip) It will end...

Russia's new 100 rouble banknote is impossible to withdraw from ATMs after Western firms that program cash machine quit the country following Ukraine invasion The Association of Russian Banks has asked for a six-month delay to rolling out the new 100 Rouble banknote as a new security feature is needed The Rzhev Memorial to the Soviet Soldier, a memorial to one of the bloodiest battles of the Second World War, is featured on the note to fuel patriotism The Western companies which install and update ATMs have pulled out of Russia Russia’s new 100 rouble banknotes are impossible to withdraw...

Russia’s energy giant Gazprom on Thursday lost more than a quarter of its market value after the state-owned company decided not to pay out dividends. “The shareholders have resolved that in the current situation it is not opportune to pay out dividends based on the results of 2021,” Famil Sadygov, deputy chairman of Gazprom, said in a statement. “At the moment, Gazprom prioritizes the implementation of its investment program, including gas infrastructure expansion in the regions of the Russian Federation, and the preparations for the coming winter period. In addition, we undoubtedly must be ready to meet our obligations to...

Since the start of the year, the ruble has soared 40% against the dollar — outperforming every other currency in the world.Russian President Vladimir Putin has touted the ruble’s robust recovery as proof that his economy has successfully withstood the onslaught of Western sanctions. “The idea was clear: crush the Russian economy violently,” Putin told an economic forum in St. Petersburg last week. “They did not succeed. Obviously, that didn’t happen.”

Why does it feel like real fiscal conservatives are an endangered species? The current US economic climate is an unsustainable disaster caused by the idiotic policies of not just the Biden administration but trumps as well. When trump took office the deficit was somewhat manageable, and trump proceeded to exploded 500% (increased by trillions)in 4 years. Trumps idiotic reckless spending is not somehow less damaging than bidens idiotic reckless spending just because he is on your team. Trump and Bidens economic policy is the equivalent of maxing out your credit cards getting payday loans and a reverse mortgage buying a...

As the Russian ruble defies currency market gravity, perhaps no one is more surprised than officials in Ankara and Buenos Aires.

p>It’s no secret that China and Russia have been stashing away as much gold as possible for many years.China is the world’s largest producer and buyer of gold. Russia is number two. Most of that gold finds its way into the Russian and Chinese governments’ treasuries.Russia has over 2,300 tonnes—or nearly 74 million troy ounces—of gold, one of the largest stashes in the world. Nobody knows the exact amount of gold China has, but most observers believe it is even larger than Russia’s stash.Russia and China’s gold gives them access to an apolitical neutral form of money with no counterparty...

Sanctions are hitting Russian families at the grocery store as food prices rise amid surging inflation, which is already running at double the rate of the West. Consumers are falling further behind as wages stagnate in a slowing economy. The situation is expected to get worse as inventories run down, sanctions take effect and buyers adopt strategies that could push inflation higher.

All of these similarities and differences are setting up a sea-change revaluation of capital, resources and labor that will be on the same scale as the extraordinary transitions of the 1920s and 1970s. The awakening of inflation after decades of slumber has triggered a flurry of comparisons to the 1970s accompanied by a chorus of projections for 1970s-type stagflation, defined as inflation plus economic stagnation-- limited or negative growth and high unemployment. A less popular comparison is with the 1920s: a massive expansion of debt, an equally massive speculative bubble in assets and extreme wealth-income inequality, all against a backdrop...

Technological innovation always drives disruption, creates fear and panic among powerful incumbents and forces the globally connected to lock arms in defense of their supremacy. This isn’t theory, conjecture or hypothesis, it’s merely a truth observed and recorded over thousands of years of history. This very short video clip perfectly explains how technological disruption eventually breaks through barriers of resistance. FUD is an acronym that stands for Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt. FUD is used in many forms to distract, divert, diminish and discourage the general public from understanding truth, embracing change, making rational/objective decisions to alter the “status quo” and/or...