Wednesday, November 27, 2013

"I Fear For What’s Coming" – 68% Of Americans Believe The Country Is On The Wrong Track

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2013-11-26/i-fear-what%E2%80%99s-coming-%E2%80%93-68-americans-believe-country-wrong-track

Are you deeply concerned about the future of America?  Is something in your gut telling you that our system is fundamentally brokenand that the mainstream media is not telling you the truth about what is happening?  If so, you are definitely not alone.  Right now, there are millions upon millions of Americans that are absolutely horrified as they watch this nation deteriorate.  In fact, according to an analysis of recent polling data conducted by Real Clear Politicsapproximately 68 percent of all Americans believe that the country is on the wrong track and only 23.5 percent of all Americans believe that the country is on the right track.

Chris Hedges: Shielding a Flickering Flame

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article36976.htm

The forces of life, including the ecosystem, are being transformed into forces of death. The monster Typhoon Haiyan is only one of the first tragedies. Nature and global elites seeking to exploit the planet’s last drops of blood and its repressed masses are joining to make the days of descent squalid and terrifying. And in this extremity we will have to find our place. There will come a time, if there is no radical change, when we too will be forced to choose how we will die, whom we will cling to, what we will risk.

Tuesday, November 26, 2013

California's Gun-Grabbing Einsatzgruppen

http://freedominourtime.blogspot.com/2013/11/californias-gun-grabbing-einsatzgruppen.html

Did The CIA Murder US Journalist? Security Experts Saying Michael Hastings Car Was Hacked!

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article36982.htm

According to a prominent security analyst, technology exists that could've allowed someone to hack his car. Former U.S. National Coordinator for Security, Infrastructure Protection, and Counter-terrorism Richard Clarke told The Huffington Post that what is known about the single-vehicle crash is "consistent with a car cyber attack."

Clarke said, "There is reason to believe that intelligence agencies for major powers" -- including the United States -- know how to remotely seize control of a car.
Posted November 27, 2013


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ied7_tHkbbY

MARTIN ARMSTRONG'S LATEST BLOG POST

2013 – The Year of Political Change

QUESTION: What do you see for Russia and China? Are they rising as it appears even militarily in addition to economically?
ANSWER: In truth, the year 2013 was the precise turning point for the USA and the exposure of the NSA has been right on target. Furthermore, the entire debt ceiling crisis has led to a profound realization Behind the Curtain that the USA lost its sovereignty because of its indebtedness. China announcing it will start to develop its internal economy and stop amassing dollar reserves is also right on point. This year was the target for a major change politically and this marks the beginning of the decline and fall.  Read the Special Report we did on the 224 Year Cycle of Political Change that covers USA, China, and Russia.
224 Yr Cycle Cover

Manipulating Markets

ECO-1895-MA
I get a lot of questions regarding to what extent can the Club manipulate markets? Ironically, the more open a market including futures, the less ability their ability to manipulate even for brief periods. Preventing or limiting markets from trading devolves a market into a corner where it can be controlled. There will always be some subtle influences that defeat 100% manipulations such as in diamonds. The smaller the market the more likely it can be controlled.
Paulson-1Just look at the 2008-2009 Crisis. Shorting financial stocks of Bear Stearns and Lehman was ok. However, as soon as the selling turned on Goldman Sachs, their stooge Hank Paulson acting as Treasury Secretary outlawed short-selling financials. He cut off the free market to save Goldman Sachs.
TankMan-060589When we look at the global economy, the Economic Confidence Model (ECM) proves that the global economy cannot be manipulated on a systemic basis indefinitely. Sure you can have a revolution and shut down the free markets as was the case with Communism. But even that failed no matter how many tanks they had.
SanFran1906EarthQuake
The ECM is all incorporating. It includes nature from weather to volcanoes and earthquakes. It was the San Francisco Earthquake of 1906 that set in motion changes to capital flows internally within the USA that sent cash from the East to the West and resulted in a cash shortage that led to the Panic of 1907. Other financial panics have been global like the Great Depression. Earthquakes have impacted Japan in the past and even up to the nuclear disaster of late.
The Club engages in market manipulations that are numerous touching many markets globally from Asia to Europe. But these are in-and-out deals. They are not some systemic plot to keep any individual market suppressed. This is all about – show me the money for their quarterly earnings and bonuses. Do you really think this people will work waiting for some profit 25 years from now?
GoldPush-1971
Volcker watched gold in the ’70s and raised interest rates looking at that market as a lead to the misconception that it was related to inflation. It was not. The rally in gold was due to Currency Inflation, which is the decline in a currency value that causes the entire sector to rise.This was pictured in the cartoon of that era.Demand Inflation is isolated. For example, the orange crop in Florida could be wiped out by a storm and this creates a shortage in oranges but apples are not effected. When the entire spectrum rises, this is typically Currency Inflationand not Demand Inflation.
Long-Term Capital Managment
The market manipulators are out for profits and what they think is the guaranteed trade because they are cheap bastards who worship money more than their reputation. They have no stomach for risk. They have ALWAYS, and without exception, BLOWN THEMSELVES up and run to government for bailouts. They have no pride. The Long-Term Capital Management (LTCM) crisis of 1998 took place because all the bribes in Christendom paid by the bankers could not prevent Russia from collapsing. The biggest banks were all involved in that trade. The Fed bailed out LTCM that was a hedge fund with no authority whatsoever. Why? Because it was really the banks who they owed so they did not want to expose the banks in the plot.
Bankers Testify

The Club desperately tried to get me to join their Russia manipulation under the theory if I said it would go up, then they would have me in their camp as a shill. When it collapsed, they blamed me as always for their sloppy trading if you can even call it trading. Paying bribes is not trading. That is rigging the game. When they rig the game, they pay no attention to trend and thus lose EVERY single time the same as the Gold Promoters who only say buy. If the banks were such great traders, they would not need bailouts. The fact that they blow up every time, demonstrates the markets CANNOT be systemically manipulated – they can only manipulate with the trend. There are no WHALE trades that management does not know about. Rogue Traders are scapegoats – management is keenly aware. Bear Stearns refused to participate in the LTCM bailout, and they were on the hit list also for not playing ball in the 2007 debacle.
WayOfFuture
When we stop the borrowing, end federal taxation, revise the world monetary system, and end banks trading with other people’s money, then and only then will we reduce the volatility and perhaps save our future, Thank God for mortality. For I surely do not want to live in the aftermath of a world these people blow up for good. They are playing with real economic weapons of mass destruction.

Special Report on Real Estate & Equities

The Shift in Institutional Investment
QUESTION:
Hi Mr Armstrong.
I’m very concerned that one of my sons here in Australia is deep into debt investing in domestic real-estate.  I’ve tried to caution him but it appears he may have to learn the hard way.  All I can do now is try to convince him to sell at least some of the houses as the markets peak in 2015/16.  So what is your expectation on Australian house prices at that time?  Will they be much higher than today despite the fact they are already too high compared to most other countries?  Or is he doomed in which case I might have to shelter him when the real-estate bubble here bursts?
Many thanks
ANSWER: We are preparing a special report on Real Estate and Equities. This is where the big money is going. This is a very important report for the future. This report should be ready hopefully by next week. Perhaps if he understands the full context of what is happening in real estate he will appreciate there are times to buy and times to sell.

Trader Dan's Market Views

Tuesday, November 26, 2013

Holiday Trade in Many Markets

About this time of the year, many market participants who trade professionally begin to scale back and lighten up on positions as they look to take some time off from the day to day warfare in the pits. Typically, that means lower trading volumes on certain days oftentimes resulting in some pretty wild swings in price as the liquidity dries up. Floor locals look forward to this time of year as many of them can make some very big gains as they play in the sandbox while some of the larger bullies are no longer present. Stop hunting becomes a favorite pastime. 

Do not be surprised therefore if we manage to see some strange, sometimes inexplicable price action. Deciphering some of this can be challenging at times as the thin volume makes price movement somewhat dubious due to the exaggerated nature of the swings.

Gold has moved higher over the last two days bouncing from $1225, which is a bit higher than where I had pegged support ( $1220 - $1215). After spiking as high as $1257.80, it quickly encountered a round of selling which knocked it well off of that level. As I type these comments, it is up $1.00 from yesterday's pit session close.

Meanwhile, silver clawed back over the $20 level and did what we expected it to do, namely elicit more selling. Copper also moved lower. Both metals continue to be sold on rallies. 

I have already written some comments on the mining shares ( HUI ) but suffice it to say, expecting gold or silver to mount any strong rally on a day in which the mining shares are further getting beaten with an ugly stick is foolhardy. Another near 3% drop in the HUI puts it just a hairbreadth away from psychological support at the 200 level. 

Since the shares have been prescient when foretelling the decline in the gold price, odds favor further weakness in gold to end the week. Much depends on how active the physical market is. Don't forget that gold deliveries for the December Comex Gold contract will begin shortly.

In looking at the price chart I still do not see anything at this point that would be considered to be the least bit bullish. Momentum continues moving lower with many indicators still not at extreme oversold levels. The ten day moving average ( noted on the price chart ) has tended to hold gold rallies for last month or so meaning that we are reaching a potential inflection point once again.


 Also I have noticed that the rallies in gold continue to be driven mostly by short covering which means that they will be limited in duration. You get a spike higher on some decent volume which measures the urgency to exit shorts whereupon the market then proceeds to drop down and begin a leg lower all over again.

What I can say at this point is that this week's low near $1225 had better hold or gold is going to test that support level I have noted above. If that fails, I can see it moving below $1200. At that point we will have to wait to see where more bargain based buying surfaces in sufficient quantity to absorb what is surely going to be momentum based selling by hedge funds and other large speculators.

Pressure in crude oil, even in the face of stronger products, weakness in the grains and bean markets today, was offset by a bit of strength in some of the softs and livestock markets with the result that the commodity complex was a mixed affair today. That is why gold did not do all that much nor did silver. Outside cues were mixed as well.

Continued Weakness Across the Mining Sector

While gold is experiencing a bit of a bounce over at the Comex, the mining shares continue their disappearing act as the selling is just relentless. What concerns me is the technical posture of this index. It is running out of time for the month of November to improve the deterioration showing up on the intermediate and long term charts.

The index is currently sitting near its session low of 203.04. As things stand at this moment, it is on track for the WORST WEEKLY CLOSE since November 2008. That is FIVE YEARS. As painful as it is for me to say this, another way of stating this is that the index has surrendered every single bit of its gains it made over the last 5 years. We are now talking about the potential for the index, IF IT BREACHES 200, to move to levels last seen at the very inception of the first QE program. Five years of wasted opportunity cost

I have said it before and will say it again, those mining companies that did not hedge any expected production when the gold chart broke down technically and the trend reversed from bullish to bearish, have done their shareholders a HUGE DISSERVICE. They willingly took on price risk leaving themselves open to downside risk in the price of gold. Businesses should not be in the business of speculation - that is for speculators such as myself. What businesses should be doing is managing price risk and locking in profits when they are available. That is what hedging is all about and why mining companies should act no differently than any other responsible producer. 

Sadly, they are now being punished by the market for this folly. Perhaps we will see an end to this bearish trend in gold in the not too distant future and that will save their bacon, but that is no way to operate in an environment in which money flows are coming out of the commodity sector in general in favor of the broader equity markets ( to the exclusion of the miners ).

Here is the price chart as things stand for the moment. Note on the long term monthly chart that every one of the major Fibonacci retracement levels of the entire decade long bull market rally has been violated to the downside. The last one left is near 185. If the index falls through psychological support at the 200 level and does not immediately recover, odds unfortunately favor a move down to that final level of 185.

That Mega "Black Friday" Sale? It's Just The End Of The Mega"Pre-Black Friday" Mark Up

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2013-11-26/mega-black-friday-sale-its-just-end-megapre-black-friday-mark

"The silliness of it all is that the original price from which the discount is computed is often specious to begin with," sums up the seemingly obvious "retail theater" that plays out every Black Friday in mall after mall across America. As the WSJ reports, the common assumption is that retailers stock up on goods and then mark down the ones that don't sell, taking a hit to their profits. But that isn't typically how it plays out. Instead, big retailers work backward with their suppliers to set starting prices that, after all the markdowns, will yield the profit margins they want. Buyers don't seem to mind. What they are after, especially in such a lackluster economy, is the feeling they got a deal, "I don't even get excited unless its 40% off." The manufactured nature of most discounts raises questions about the wisdom of standing in line for the promotional frenzy that kicks off the holiday shopping season. It also explains how retailers have been able to ramp up the bargains without giving away the store - until now.

AGENDA: Grinding America Down (Full Movie) FREE to watch for a limited time!

http://vimeo.com/63749370

How Gold Price Is Manipulated During The "London Fix"

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2013-11-25/how-gold-price-manipulated-during-london-fix

"London Gold Market Fixing Ltd., a company controlled by the five banks that administers the benchmark, has no permanent employees. A call from Bloomberg News was referred to Douglas Beadle, 68, a former Rothschild banker, who acts as a consultant to the company from his home in Caterham, a small commuter town 45 minutes south of London by train. Beadle declined to comment on the benchmark-setting process."

Monday, November 25, 2013

MARTIN ARMSTRONG'S LATEST BLOG POST

Gold – Beating a Dead Horse

Dead Horse
QUESTION: 
Hello Mr. Armstrong,
I understand your thoughts on manipulating against a trend, but with gold being halted for the 4th time in 3 months by large sales orders placed during illiquid hours, does there come a time when you can say, “OK, something fishy is going on here.”?
Banks have been caught manipulating energy, aluminum and libor – So why would gold be so special as to not be manipulated?
“Once is happenstance, twice is coincidence, but three times is enemy action.” – Ian Flemming, Creator of James Bond
BG
ANSWER: Talking directly with real sources, it has been liquidation. If it were a manipulation, they would be covering the shorts. They have not done that. This has been simply liquidation that is going with the trend. There is no depth to the market anymore. Liquidity is down by 50% on everything. This is the same kind of liquidation that took place in the last year of the Nikkei. It is just capitulation. The orders are not even that large. There is simply a lack of buyers even during the liquid hours. People would flock to buy gold if there was a real solid bull market bid.
It is just a matter of time. Let the liquidation take place. It has to do this. Mines will close and shorts will then build going into the lows. It will be the shorts who make the low – NEVER longs. At the low, people can only see it going lower and at the high, it will explode to a new plateau any day now. In 1929, Irving Fisher became famous for saying the new high reflected the real economy and it was a new plateau that would hold. In Japan, they said the Nikkei was destined for 100,000. In gold in 1980 $1,000 was a blink-of-the-eye away as was $100 silver. With the introduction of the Euro, the press touted that the pound would collapse because it was not joining. A major German manufacturer sold a year’s worth of sales in Britain short on the news. I got called in to get them out of a $1 billion loss based on what they read in the press.
You simply MUST break the back of sentiment to reverse a trend be it up or down. Yes, you are beating a dead horse. The longer you make excuses, the longer you will suffer losses and fail to see how markets really trade. If all the commodities were in a bull market and ONLY gold was declining, that would imply something is wrong. But that is not the case here for the entire sector is decline as is Emerging Markets who were the big buyers in commodities. Nobody, not the Fed or any powerful group with all the bribes paid to the IMF to keep funding Russia, can prevent a reversal in trend.
The Club, or market manipulators, tried to get me involved directly. I looked them right in the eye. They invited me to the IMF dinner to try to impress me how they had government in their back pocket. It does not matter. All the bribes in Christendom cannot make a bull market out of a bear market. They have lowered rates to virtually zero in Japan for more than 20 years. It failed to stimulate the economy.
The Club are in this game for the quick fast buck – not for systemic manipulation. That is just absurd. Where is the immediate profit in that? They manipulate government systemically to prevent being criminally charged with countless manipulations. But that is starting to come back to bite them in the ass. They could not control every government and in Britain, they could not stop the investigation into LIBOR.
A very famous member of the Club lost money – his employee’s pension money he played with on the side in England. He somehow fell off his yacht and drowned preventing any investigation into the Club. I would not trust these people with the keys to my car to simply park it. They keep trying to manipulate but they blow themselves up every time. How many bailouts have there been? They are not even good at the game because they think they can bribe their way to profits and never consider the risks that independent analysis reveals.
HuntBrothers
cftcNevertheless, they are by no means interested in pressing gold lower systemically. Every manipulation they have pulled off going right back to the 1980 and using the Hunts to get the public involved, has been on theUPSIDE. Why? It is easier to manipulate the metals for whenever they rally, everyone WANTS to believe this time is real. They get a deep market and sell the top every time. They changed the rules in the metals in 1980 lowering markets to a fraction for themselves (shorts) and increasing them if you were long. That was CRIMINAL, but they own the CFTC. There is no quick buck in pressing metals lower except selling into a major high or spike rally. They want money NOW – not later! Most of the big players are out and those remaining will make the low.
Gold has followed the same pattern as every other market when it gets into an over-bought position. You ran up for 13 years. THERE MUST BE A CORRECTION after that. There is no exception. Why constantly make excuses? Just go with the flow and you will make more money than refusing to accept that what goes up, also goes down. I do not care what the fundamentals are. Bullish news in a bear market is NEVER bullish enough. The trend decides all interpretation.
Gold is in line with all other markets. The stocks are rallying because that is the focus of big money. They need DIVIDENDS to compensate for the low yield in bonds especially pension funds or they will go bust. Gold offers no such dividend. Only capital appreciation when it rises. They get both trends in stocks and with a rising dollar, the foreign investor get currency gains on top of it..

Fear Not the Path of Truth

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article36968.htm

This documentary follows Ross Caputi, veteran of the 2nd siege of Fallujah, as he investigates the atrocities that he participated in and the legacy of US foreign policy in Fallujah, Iraq.
Posted November 24, 2013


MARTIN ARMSTRONG'S LATEST BLOG POSTS

Can States Go Bankrupt & Are There Exceptions to the Unfunded Pensions?

QUESTION: Martin,
I have enough years in to retire from the state of Florida.
Obviously, large cities can be bankrupt (Detroit, Chicago may be next).
Florida’s pension plan is about 85% funded and in the top 10 states that have well funded pension plans.
Do you think it is possible for an entire state to declare bankruptcy?
If so, when?
I know I’m asking a lot.
Thanks for you opinion….P
ANSWER: Some states do have money. I directly speak to some fund managers states that are managing state pension funds. They have had to shift to equities because they cannot meet obligations. The danger is the Federal government comes rushing in to help i.e. its SAFE ACT. They are more likely than not to seize control of all pension funds and the spread the wealth and try to fix the problem that way.
1833MissBond
Can a state go bankrupt? Yes they did and that was the after the Panic of 1837. They were related to the Jackson’s shutting down the Bank of the US that ended up in States having to bailout banks. In 1841 and 1842, eight states and the Territory of Florida defaulted on their sovereign debts. Traditional histories of the default crisis have stressed the causal role of the depression that began with the Panic of 1837, unexpected revenue shortfalls from canal and bank investments as a result of the depression, and an unwillingness of states to raise tax rates. None of these stylized facts fits the experience of states at all. The majority of state debts in default in 1842 were contracted after the Panic of 1837.
JacksonBankWar
In truth, the sterilized history has sought to deflect the blame from Andrew Jackson’s destruction of the Bank of the USA whereby this produced the famous Broken Banknote Crisis of the era as the state banks collapsed. Most states did not expect canal investments to return substantial revenues by 1841 and so could not experience unexpected shortfalls in those revenues. Additionally, most states were willing to raise tax rates substantially, so the Marxists who were against banks and the rich crafted the history to support their views.
The real relationship between land sales and land values explains much of the timing of state borrowing and the default experience of western and southern states. Pennsylvania and Maryland defaulted because they postponed the imposition of a state property until it was too late.
BrokenBankNote-1
Jackson’s destruction of the Bank of the US was coupled with his moving federal deposits to state banks and that gave the wrong impression that any state bank was somehow better. They all issued their own currency and much of it was just a scam. The debts taken on by the States were to try to support the banks and land prices following the Panic of 1837. It was this issue of debt that was defaulted on. Even the Bank of England still has on its books bonds from some of these states that were defaulted on permanently.

Unfunded Pensions Are Our Doom

StormingTheCastle
The standard pension systems of governments from Europe to the States are all the same. They have assumed that taxes would be an endless pit. They have promised pensions to people and never funded them. Anyone in the private sector would go to jail for creating such schemes. Historically, the people rise up when they realize they have been fooled once again by government. In England, they too are discovering the same system that collapsed Detroit is alive and well there also. The Daily Mail has reported that 25% of all taxes in a municipal council go to pensions. They cannot see that operating in this fashion will cause and economic implosion. For every person who retires, they must hire another. This is sending taxes higher and the cost of government to double within the next 10 years.
Those who have claimed there would be hyperinflation assume that government can and will simply print money to cover the expense. But state and local government cannot print money. The majority of governments are in a massive collapsing spiral and this is DEFLATION for as taxes rise, disposable income declines, and eventually they cannot collect in taxes what they need to keep the game afoot.
Mainz
When this type of system came to a head in the city of Mainz during the 15th century, they chased all the producers out by raising taxes and were left with a gutted economy much like Detroit. Mainz had been the birthplace of the Guttenberg printing press and this created a huge economic boom. The politicians thought this would never end and spend more than the future could pay.
•By 1411, gov’t expenditure. 48% due to annuities it had issued.
• By 1437, gov’t expenditure. 75% was going to the creditors and interest rates continued to rise.
• By 1448, Mainz was forced into bankruptcy when there were no longer buyers for its debt.
The City of Mainz defaulted on their debts. The foreign holders of their debt sacked the city and then burned it to the ground. Government is incapable of ever designing any system when it comes to money. Social Security in the States is the same system. Look at Obamacare. There is nothing government is ever capable of doing that ever honestly benefits society in a fair and sustainable manner. We need serious structure reforms and the recognize that government has to be restrained to save society from self-destruction.

Swiss Democracy – Very Interesting

Swiss-Zurich
In Switzerland, many issues go directly to the people to vote on. Unfortunately, not everything. The Swiss bureaucrats themselves destroyed the Swiss banking system by agreeing to draw the line at 2008 for any liability a bank might have to the US government for an account an American might have had. The value of Swiss banks has collapsed. Why? If you bought one that was worth $100 million before for even $10 million, the due diligence will cost you twice that and then who knows. The US can say you had an account for an American who did not pay their taxes and they will fine you $100 million. There is no limit to the risk you inherit. There are numerous small banks that are on the verge of shutting down and they cannot even be sold because it is not who their clients are today, but who they might have been in the past.
SwissRef-2013
On Sunday, the people proved that they are far better decision makers than bureaucrats. In a Swiss Federal referendum, the people rejected Marxist programs of the Socialists across the board. The people did not want to raise the price of the motorway vignette by even 100 francs rejecting this as 60.5% of the total vote. The Swiss people also rejected an initiative of the UDC for tax breaks for parents with care giving by 58.5% of the vote, and the limitation of CEO salaries that would prevent them from earning more than 12 times the lowest wage earner in the company. They rejected this initiative by a staggering 65.3%. In all cases, this was a bigger majority than any US President, including FDR in 1932, has ever been elected to office..
If all tax increases had to go to the public in Europe and the USA, they would be rejected. Governments have evolved under these fake Democracies that are really masquerading Republics that are truly Oligarchies, where they always vote against the people they pretend to be “representing”. The Swiss have demonstrated that putting issues to the people produce real engaged results.

The Internal Battle Within Ukraine – Strategically Quite Important

kiev-1
There is an internal struggle in Ukraine that is tearing the nation in two manifest in its capital at Kiev. The struggle tends to be between the East and West.  Ukraine was actually Europe’s second largest country during the twentieth century, occupies 232,200 square miles (603,700 square kilometers).
There is a battle going on inside Ukraine where many want to align with the EU and the East wants to align with Russia. There are signs everywhere warning about joining the EU that it will cause deflation and loss of employment. Many from the East want Russian even to be the national language. This struggle is starting to lead to civil unrest as the government suddenly turned direction from Europe to Russia.
kiev-2Ukrainian nationhood begins with the Kyivan Rus. This Eastern Slavic state flourished from the ninth to the thirteenth centuries on the territory of contemporary Ukraine, with Kyiv as its capital. The name Ukraine first appeared in twelfth century chronicles in reference to the Kyivan Rus. In medieval Europe cultural boundary codes were based on a native ground demarcation. Ukraine, with its lexical roots kraj (country) and krayaty (to cut, and hence to demarcate), meant “[our] circumscribed land.” The ethnonym Rus was the main self-identification in Ukraine until the seventeenth century when the term Ukraine reappeared in documents. This ethnonym of Rus people, Rusych (plural, Rusychi ), evolved into Rusyn , a western Ukrainian self-identification interchangeable with Ukrainian into the twentieth century. Ruthenian , a Latinization of Rusyn , was used by the Vatican and the Austrian Empire designating Ukrainians.
Anti-government protest in Ukraine
protest with about 100,000 people erupted on Sunday in Kiev in support of joining Europe rather than Russia. Ukraine has a lot of political pressure coming from Russia and Europe. Russia is said to have threatened to turn off the natural gas to the Ukraine if it joined the EU and Europe is promising to supply it gas even though it would be getting that energy from Russia. To say the least, the events in Ukraine are politically very important as we move beyond 2014.

Iran Nuclear Deal or Calm Before the Storm?

Rouhani President Hassan
previously warned that the Syrian issue being propelled by Saudi Arabia all over getting their pipeline through Syria to Turkey for Europe, was placing at risk a real game-changer in negotiations with Iran. In the June elections, there was a major shift that moved the political wind in Tehran. President Hassan Rouhani won the election in Iran with a landslide after he campaigned on trying to get rid of the economic sanctions by engaging with the West. His victory was so impressive among the youth that he won even the very cautious backing of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei to move forward and try to engage with Western countries in an attempt to ease Iran’s isolation over Tehran’s nuclear program.
Rouhani defeated the old hardliners at the polls who still dominate parliament. They also control the powerful Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. Their agenda is to return Iran to the familiar posture of defiance. A Syrian strike by the USA would have supported the hardliners and isolated Rouhani who was preparing to travel to New York to attend the UN personally at that very time. President Rouhani, with the backing of the youth, wanted to show the Iranian people were ready to join the world community and end the confrontation.
On Sunday, Iran and six world powers struck a deal to curb the Iranian nuclear program in exchange for initial sanctions relief reported by Reuters. This deal signals the start of a game-changing era in the Middle East. This is all a generational shift in attitude. Can this still just be the calm before the storm if the hardliners find a way to restore the confrontation after 2014?