🇯🇵🏦💸📉 — 🏴 ZeroHedge | The Music Just Stopped: Japan Banking Giant Norinchukin To Liquidate $63 Billion In Treasuries & European Bonds To Plug Massive Unrealized Losses | June 18, 2024:

"Last October, when the wounds from the March 2023 bank failures - which surpassed the global financial crisis in total assets and which sparked the latest Fed intervention, setting the market's nadir over the past 16 months - were still fresh, we made a non-consensus prediction: we said that since the Fed has once again backstopped the US financial system, "the next bank failure will be in Japan."

This prediction only got warmer two months later when, inexplicably, Japan's Norinchukin bank, best known as Japan's CLO whale, was quietly added to the list of counterparties for the Fed's Standing Repo Facility, a/k/a the Fed's foreign bank bailout slush fund.

But if that was the first, and still distant, sign that something was very wrong at one of Japan's biggest banks (Norinchukin is Japan's 5th largest bank with $840 billion in assets) today the proverbial canary stepped on a neutron bomb inside the Japanese coalmine, because according to Nikkei, Norinchukin Bank "will sell more than 10 trillion yen ($63 billion) of its holdings of U.S. and European government bonds during the year ending March 2025 as it aims to stem its losses from bets on low-yield foreign bonds, a main cause of its deteriorating balance sheet, and lower the risks associated with holding foreign government bonds."

#Geoeconomics

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🔦🏴❌🇷🇺 — #BREAKING — Reports of a terrorist attack at a synaguogue in Dagestan, south of Russia.

@saheliananalysis

🇪🇺🚫🇷🇺🛢 — 🇬🇧 Reuters | EU sanctions target Russian gas for the first time, diplomats say | June 20, 2024:

"BRUSSELS, June 20 (Reuters) - European Union countries agreed on a 14th package of sanctions against Russia over its war in Ukraine, diplomats said on Thursday, including their first restrictions on Russian gas.
The package bans re-exports of Russian liquefied natural gas (LNG) in EU waters but stops short of banning imports as the bloc did in 2022 for Russian seaborne oil. Some EU countries still import pipeline gas from Russia via Ukraine.

However, gas market experts say the measure will have little impact as trans-shipments of gas via EU ports to Asia represent only around 10% of total Russian LNG exports."

#Geoeconomics

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🇹🇷💻 Turkey’s biggest crypto exchange BtcTurk hacked

Turkey’s biggest cryptocurrency market BtcTurk said in an announcement on Saturday that their exchange had been hacked, while a popular Bitcoin analyst claimed that the amount of money stolen amounted to nearly 51 million euros.

https://www.euronews.com/next/2024/06/22/turkeys-biggest-crypto-exchange-btcturk-hacked

🇯🇵❤️💰 Japanese public company Metaplanet Inc. issues ¥1 billion (around $6.3milion) in 0.5% bonds to buy more #Bitcoin

https://x.com/Crypto_Inside_/status/1805130156979237363

🌍⚡️Global Data Centers now consume more electricity than most countries

https://fxtwitter.com/Crypto_Inside_/status/1805129713901298005

🇦🇺🕊🇺🇸 — Wikileaks Founder and Freedom of Speech Hero is expected to plead guilty in a deal that could free him from prison, British Media says

➡️ WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange reached an agreement with the United States Court on Monday (24) to plead guilty to espionage charges in exchange for his freedom, according to prosecutors in US court documents.

➡️ After weeks of negotiations, Assange will plead guilty this week to violating US espionage law. The agreement should allow Assange to be released from prison in the United Kingdom and return to Australia, the country of which he is a citizen and born in.

➡️ With the agreement, the WikiLeaks founder will face a criminal charge of conspiracy to obtain and disclose classified US national defense documents during a hearing in the Northern Mariana Islands at 9 am on Wednesday local time

➡️ The US wants to try Assange for leaking 700,000 confidential documents since 2010 about American military and diplomatic activities, mainly in Iraq and Afghanistan during the Operation Iraqi Freedom and Operation Enduring Freedom, where US and NATO toppled the Baathist Authorities of Iraq and liberated Afghanistan from the Taliban's Islamic Emirate Regime, showing to the world abuses of power, corruption schemes and possible Human rights violations by Western Armies

➡️ One of the materials leaked by Assange was a video showing US soldiers executing 18 civilians from a helicopter in Iraq. Others showed the murders of civilians, including journalists, as well as abuses committed by authorities in the US and other countries. As the identities of people who cooperated with the military in the Middle East were revealed, US officials stated that the leak put lives at risk.

➡️ "My client is being prosecuted for carrying out a common journalistic practice of obtaining and publishing confidential information, truthful information and information of clear and important public interest," Assange's lawyer, Edward Fitzgerald, said in court.

➡️ Assange could be sentenced to 175 years in prison if he were extradited to the United States

🇦🇺🕊🇺🇸 — 📹 Video: Wikileaks Founder Julian Assange was seen boarding a plane after his release from prison.

He left United Kingdom according to his organization, Wikileaks
Per WIkileaks, Mr. Assange boarded at London Stansted Airport at 5PM (BST) Monday June 24th.

🔗 WikiLeaks (@wikileaks)

🇦🇺🕊🇺🇸 — 📰 BNO News: Julian Assange is on board VistaJet Flight 199, which is currently over Afghanistan en-route to Bangkok.

After Bangkok, he will fly to the Northern Mariana Islands to plead guilty before going to his home country, Australia.

🔗 BNO News Live (@BNODesk)

🇨🇳❌🇹🇼 — 🇺🇸 CNN | How China could take Taiwan without even needing to invade | June 22, 2024:

"China’s military could isolate Taiwan, cripple its economy, and make the democratic island succumb to the will of Beijing’s ruling Communist Party without ever firing a shot, a prominent think tank warns.

(...) Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), warns there is a third way, one that will make it far harder for the United States and other like-minded democracies to counter: Quarantine.

Using “gray zone” tactics – actions just below what might be considered acts of war – the China Coast Guard, its so-called maritime militia and various police and maritime safety agencies could initiate a full or partial quarantine of Taiwan, possibly cutting off access to its ports and stopping vital supplies like energy from reaching the island’s 23 million people, a newly released report from CSIS says."

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🇨🇳❌🇹🇼 — 🇹🇼 Taipei Times | China might quarantine Taiwan, report says |June 23, 2024:

"China might seek to isolate Taiwan and weaken its economy through a “quarantine,” which would make it difficult for the US to respond and force Taipei to negotiate on unification, CNN reported on Saturday.

Chinese President Xi Jinping’s (習近平) “increasingly bellicose actions” toward Taiwan have heightened concerns that Beijing would use its military against Taiwan, it said, citing a report by think tank the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS).

However, China might choose to initiate a quarantine, rather than a military invasion of Taiwan, to avoid US involvement, it said."

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🇷🇺🤝🇨🇳💸 — 🇺🇦 Ukrainian channel ZN.UA on Telegram:

"Russia and China are trying to create an alternative to the American dollar and are already offering eastern and southern countries a new unit of international calculations, which was called The Unit - Polish RMF FM.

The new currency is expected to be largely backed by gold reserves. Currently, China is consistently implementing its plan to abandon the dollar, get rid of American bonds, and accumulate gold reserves.

So far, only Russia is talking about the launch of a new currency, The Unit, competitive with the dollar. How serious the Kremlin's intentions are will be shown by the summit of the BRICS countries, which will be held in Kazan in the fall."

#Geoeconomics

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