China Holds Record U.S. Debt Ian Katz Bloomberg January 16, 2014
China’s holdings of U.S. Treasuries increased $12.2 billion to a record $1.317 trillion in November, data released on the Treasury Department’s website showed. The figures, scheduled for release at 9 a.m. tomorrow in Washington, were inadvertently posted on the Treasury’s website. Japan’s holdings rose $12 billion to $1.186 trillion, the figures showed. China’s swelling foreign-exchange reserves, reported today to have reached a world record $3.82 trillion at the end of December, may sustain the nation’s appetite for U.S. debt. Capital inflows and intervention to limit gains in the yuan have contributed to China building up currency holdings that are a third of the global total. “Large interest-rate differential and steady appreciation of the renminbi contributed to large arbitrage inflows into China, a situation made all the more easy with China’s increasing financial integration and renminbi internationalization,” UBS AG Hong Kong-based economist Wang Tao wrote in a report on China’s data. China’s pace of foreign-exchange reserve accumulation will be slower this year due to the Federal Reserve’s monetary tapering, likely widening of the yuan’s trading band and tighter controls on arbitrage activities, Wang said.
Early Release A Treasury spokeswoman said that because of an error, limited amounts of data were posted on the department’s website ahead of the official release, and were removed as soon as it was discovered. The full November 2013 data will be released as previously scheduled at 9 a.m. tomorrow, she said.
The yuan this week reached 6.0406 per dollar, the strongest since the government unified the official and market exchange rates at the end of 1993. The latest data on China’s foreign-currency holdings contrasted with Yi Gang, a deputy governor at the central bank, saying in November that it was “no longer in China’s favor to accumulate foreignexchange reserves.’ The U.S. data showed net long-term portfolio investment outflow was $29.3 billion in November after a revised inflow the month before of $28.7 billion, the Treasury’s figures showed. The total crossborder outflow in November, including short-term securities such as Treasury bills and stock swaps, was $16.6 billion, after a revised inflow of $188.1 billion in October, the data showed. The Standard & Poor’s 500 Index (SPX) gained 2.8 percent in November. Investors in Treasuries lost 0.4 percent that month, according to Bloomberg World Bond (BUSY) Indexes. The Bloomberg U.S. Dollar Index, a gauge of the greenback’s value against 10 major currencies weighted by liquidity and trade flows, gained 0.9 percent in November.
Judge Rules No Fly List Is Unconstitutional Paul Joseph Watson Infowars.com January 16, 2014
Obama administration demands details of ruling be sealed A judge has ruled that the U.S. government must remove a Malaysian academic from the no fly list, rendering the infamous policy unconstitutional. Stanford University doctoral student Rahinah Ibrahim’s
rights were violated when the federal government wrongly placed her on the list, according to U.S. District Judge William Alsup, a ruling that could spell the beginning of the end for the onerous measure that has ensnared politicians, journalists and even 18-month-old children. The Obama administration, which has resorted to dirty tricks in aggressively attempting to stall the trial at every turn, pressured the judge into sealing the ruling until April in an effort to prevent the full details from being released publicly. In other words, the feds don’t want the American people to know what a monumental fraud the no fly list has been from the very start. Why does the ruling matter? Citing national security, the federal government has thus far refused to correct its list even if it’s known that people have been wrongly added. The ruling forces the feds to swear under oath that they will remove Ibrahim’s name from the list, setting a precedent for everyone else who has been unfairly targeted. The ruling also forces the government to tell people whether they are on the list or not, which it had also previously refused to do. Because the government’s current administrative remedies don’t satisfy these functions, Judge Alsup has ruled them unconstitutional. The no fly list, created after the 9/11 attacks, currently contains the names of around 21,000 people. A secondary “terror watch list” contains over a million names. As we have previously highlighted, CNN Investigative Correspondent Drew Griffin was added to the no fly list after he filed a report critical of the TSA. In 2004, Senator Ted Kennedy was also told he could not fly because he had been placed on the list. In 2012 it emerged that an 18-month old daughter of two New Jersey-born Americans of Middle Eastern descent was also added to the list. The list has generated innumerable false positives which has led to widespread condemnation, especially given that the government has refused to amend its mistakes. All that is now set to change, unless of course the Obama administration resorts to more dirty tricks in an attempt to cover-up the true scale of the controversy.
Obama-Backed Mexican Troops Disarm And Massacre More Civilians Alex Newman The New American January 16, 2014
Obama administration-backed Mexican troops opened fire this week on a group of civilians seeking to keep their weapons and rein in ruthless government-linked drug cartels, which have terrorized their communities in the state of Michoacán. The attack sparked an international outcry on behalf of the citizens, who have suffered non-stop brutality at the hands of both government officials and criminal syndicates. News reports, some of which conflict with each other, suggest that around a dozen people were shot and at least four were killed in the massacre, including an 11-year-old girl. A Mexican paper reported that a dozen civilians died in the clash. Multiple reports and local witnesses said that Mexican forces opened fire on an unarmed crowd, though officials would not confirm that to foreign reporters. Community leaders quoted in press reports said the government was trying to protect cartels. Authorities also claimed not to know exactly how many people had been killed in the clashes, which reportedly began Monday, January 13, when a group of unarmed citizens tried to stop a convoy of heavily armed government functionaries from entering the town of Antunez and disarming residents. However, journalists and news reports confirmed that there were multiple bodies in the area, and at least several locals reported that their family members had been slain in attacks by government troops. The federal assault came days after local self-defense groups managed to drive out criminal syndicates from more and more towns in the region over the weekend. Spokesmen for local communities said the biggest confrontation involved around 60 to 80 government troops, although hundreds were in the area. Officials claim they were trying to bring “security” to the region by disarming the civilians, whom they refer to as “vigilantes” for seeking to drive cartels out of their beleaguered communities. Also part of the scheme was enforcing Mexico’s draconian gun-control regime, which critics say violates the human rights of law-abiding Mexicans while contributing heavily to the ongoing reign of terror
and murder across much of the nation. “There will be no tolerance for anyone caught with firearms,” decreed Government Secretary Miguel Angel Osorio Chong. Other top Mexican officials made similar statements, demanding that citizens surrender their weapons and essentially submit to whatever group or cartel happens to be terrorizing the public at that moment. “We can't combat illegality with illegality,” claimed Attorney General Jesus Murillo Karam in a statement to Televisa television. He claimed the purpose of the latest deployment, which led to the massacre, “is simply to restore legal order in a place that did not have it.” Authorities apparently expect citizens to rely on the deeply corrupt government for security, even though estimates suggest that between 50,000 and 100,000 innocent people have been slaughtered in less than a decade as drug war-fueled violence continues to escalate. Many Mexicans, however, have had enough of the terror and are organizing self-defense groups to protect their communities and families from lawless cartels and the corrupt officials controlled by criminal syndicates. The latest confrontations happened near the village of Apatzingan in the southwestern Mexican state of Michoacán. Following years of abuse, dirt-poor townspeople — farmers, laborers, local officials, merchants, and more — decided to exercise their God-given right to self-defense against the cultish and brutal so-called “Knights Templar” cartel. The community defense organizations have now liberated and wrested control of more than a dozen cities and towns in the region from criminals, according to news reports. The locals first decided to arm and organize themselves into self-defense units, known as “fuerzas autodefensas” in Spanish, early last year. By then, it had become clear to citizens that authorities were either working with the criminal syndicates, or were powerless to stop them. Indeed, entire police departments in the state have been arrested for working with cartels, and evidence confirming U.S. government partnerships with certain crime bosses continues to emerge. In one case, though, a mayor in Michoacan, Ygnacio Lopez Mendoza, decided to speak out against the cartels and their extortion rackets. He was promptly kidnapped, tortured, mutilated, and murdered — part of a nationwide trend. The cartels even have a saying, “plomo o plata,” which translates to lead (bullets) or silver (money). In other words, officials who are not already working with cartels are offered a choice: Either take the bribes, or die. Initially, Mexico City reluctantly tolerated some of the self-defense groups despite the radical guncontrol regime. More recently, however, in response to locals’ efforts to restore order and security in their villages, authorities sent in hundreds of soldiers and federal police. Upon arrival, officials reportedly ordered citizens to surrender their only means of self-defense — mostly crude firearms. When villagers refused to let them pass, Mexican forces reportedly opened fire, shooting about a dozen
victims and killing at least four, probably more. “What we are doing is defending our family, our people,” said Estanislao Beltran, a spokesman for the General Council and Community Self-Defense Forces of Michoacán. “The government has not cared for 12 years for our safety. The army arrives and disarms us and our partners.... Following this, the people took to the roads to stop the army and asked for the return of the arms to the community because they were defending their communities.” Beltran also said that citizens would “never” give up their weapons and that there would be no discussions with authorities until Knights Templar bosses are arrested. “The problem is the Caballeros Templarios of Michoacán, and the government is in collusion with organized crime,” he added. “The army is made of people without values or ethics. The military has no reason to shoot the people.” Other local residents and community leaders echoed those remarks, with some grieving over the loss of their loved ones at the hands of Mexican forces. Of course, Beltran and his fellow residents are hardly alone in accusing authorities of colluding with drug cartels. In Mexico, the corruption of government officials at all levels is common knowledge. Just this month, meanwhile, a year-long investigation by a leading Mexican newspaper confirmed once again that the U.S. government has also been partnering with some of Mexico’s most ruthless cartels for over a decade — especially the Sinaloa cartel. Last year, as The New American reported, leaked documents quoting U.S. and Mexican officials also indicated that American troops were already operating in Mexico. In addition to supporting certain cartels such as Sinaloa, U.S. troops secretly operating in the nation were reportedly working with Mexican forces to perpetrate “surgical strikes.” Leading analysts equated the machinations to “death squads.” Long before those revelations hit the headlines, Obama announced an expansion of the Bush administration’s controversial program to support the Mexican government in its blood-drenched “war.” Despite widespread human-rights concerns, Washington, D.C., has continued to pour hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars into the drug-war coffers of Latin American governments — especially the one ruling Mexico — for years. So far, the schemes show no signs of slowing down or getting anywhere near “victory.” In response to the escalating drug-war death toll and soaring violence across the region, Latin American leaders from Colombia and Guatemala to Mexico and Uruguay have increasingly started searching for alternatives — including potentially an outright end to drug prohibition. However, the United Nations and the Obama administration have demanded that the so-called “war” be stepped up, threatening noncooperative governments while showering more taxpayer funds on those that comply. Caught in the crossfire, meanwhile, are the thousands of innocent civilians murdered every year. The Obama Deception The Truth About Barry Soetoro AKA Barack Obama VIDEO BELOW http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eAaQNACwaLw Fall of the Republic Obama's Final Destruction Of America VIDEO BELOW http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VebOTc-7shU
INFOWARS.COM BECAUSE THERE'S A WAR ON FOR YOUR MIND