Central Bank Gold Demand In First Half Of 2023 Was The Highest On Record

Via SchiffGold.com,

Despite significant selling by Turkey that slowed net central bank gold buying in the second quarter, central banks added a record amount of gold to their reserves through the first half of 2023.

Net central bank gold purchases totaled 387 tons through the first half of the year, according to data compiled by the World Gold Council. That was the highest first-half total since the organization started compiling quarterly data in 2000.

Net central bank purchases were down in Q2 after setting a first-quarter record due to net sales of 132 tons between April and June. On net central banks added 102.9 tons of gold to their reserves in the second quarter.

Turkey was the biggest gold buyer in the first quarter but turned to selling in March. In a three-month span, Turkey reduced its gold holdings by 160 tons.

👉 Read full

German soldiers in winter gear and gas masks on the Eastern Front, WWI, 1917

❗️🇷🇺🚀 Removal of the Soyuz-2.1b rocket with the Luna-25 apparatus to the launch site of the Vostochny cosmodrome - the last preparations for the launch of the first Russian lunar station in almost 50 years are being completed.

This will be the first station in history to land on the Moon's South Pole. Her main task is to find water. Experts believe that it is at the South Pole of our satellite that the largest amount of permafrost, and hence water, is located. However, researchers do not yet know how much it is and how deep it can be.

Also, Luna-25 will have to work out the soft landing technology, analyze the soil and conduct long-term scientific research, including the study of the upper layer of surface regolith in the region of the South Pole of the Moon, as well as the lunar exosphere.

JUST IN - Iraq suspends Telegram over ‘national security’

READ: https://insiderpaper.com/iraq-suspends-telegram-over-national-security/

Norwegian herding call (kulning) 🇳🇴

Thoughts on Constantinople?

Rough weather heading our way.

https://www.al.com/news/2023/08/two-waves-of-severe-weather-possible-in-alabama-today-when-will-storms-start-where-i-live.html

The CIA "enabled" 9/11. https://jacobin.com/2023/05/cia-fbi-911-hijackers-cover-up-bush-media

BREAKING: Portland jury finds Antifa militants not liable in Andy Ngo attack, Antifa attorney declares ‘I AM ANTIFA’

https://thepostmillennial.com/breaking-jury-finds-all-antifa-defendants-not-liable-in-andy-ngo-attack-defense-attorney-declares-i-am-antifa?utm_campaign=64483

The judge in the Andy Ngo trial just admitted that jurors reported Antifa was trying to dox them

A journalist was accosted by Antifa *inside the courthouse*

You think they won’t threaten Trump jurors too?

Understand where we are heading

The Head of the United Abominations Department of Global Communications, Melissa Fleming, speaking on a World Economic ForThem panel about collaborating with Google to censor search results that challenge the Climate Scam narrative. (36 seconds)

Ukraine is probably out of Storm Shadow/SCALP cruise missiles, or at least very close to out of them. They've been firing them for months now with very modest success thanks to formidable Russian countermeasures, frequently expending large numbers of missiles for limited results. Moreover they did not get a lot of them to begin with, because there were a very limited amount to give between British and French war stocks.

The plot thickens when we consider the Russian strike on the Starokonstantinov military airfield in Khmelnitsky on the night of August 5th, where Ukraine's small fleet of Su-24s modified to carry Western cruise missiles was based. Despite some online criticism of the strike as ineffective, massive secondary explosions were reported at the time and satellite photos of the aftermath show an enormous crater where the base's ammunition storage bunkers once sat. I believe that it actually hit exactly what it was aimed at: Ukraine's storage depot for its Storm Shadow missiles, placed exactly where they would logically be stored for most convenient use.

Ukraine conducted a large (and largely ineffectual) Storm Shadow strike on the road bridges connecting Crimea and Kherson on August 6th, but this is not inconsistent with the loss of the depot. The Ukrainians had warning of an incoming strike for hours beforehand and have made a practice of launching their aircraft during such attacks to avoid their destruction on the ground. The missiles fired on the 6th had likely been uploaded onto aircraft prior to the attack and were thus saved.

Now for the real tell - the next day, August 7th, the German Bundestag reversed their longstanding position on transferring Taurus cruise missiles to Ukraine and authorized the move. This strongly suggests to me that this was done on an emergency basis as the Storm Shadows supplied earlier had been almost entirely destroyed by interdiction strikes such as that in Khmelnitsky or expended in combat. There are very few coincidences in war, and Germany authorizing the transfer of their cruise missiles a matter of hours after the Russians destroyed an ammunition depot at a Ukrainian base hosting cruise missile-equipped strike aircraft is an enormous red flag - presumably, appropriate pressure was brought to bear on the Germans after this disaster and they fell in line as they always have.

Let's actually look at the timeline here:

May 11, 2023 - Britain announces donation, British-model missiles begin to be used in combat
July 11, 2023 - France announces donation, French-model missiles immediately appear on the battlefield
August 5th, 2023 - Russian missile strike on Khmelnitsky
August 6th, 2023 - Ukrainian missile strike on Chongar
August 7th, 2023 - Germany approves transferring Taurus missiles to Ukraine

Expect to see Taurus missiles appear in Ukraine in the immediate future and the Storm Shadow rapidly disappear from the headlines. Unless the Germans modify their missiles to comply with the Missile Technology Control Regime's 300km range limit this will be a significant development - the unmodified Taurus has a 500km range that will bring the Kerch Bridge firmly into missile range from Ukrainian-held territory, and the Germans have hundreds of missiles to transfer. One German lawmaker suggested as many as 450. Although attacks on the Kerch Bridge are largely annoyances in military terms, they make for potent propaganda and as such the Russians would be wise to reinforce air defenses in the area.

JUST IN - House Oversight Committee has now identified over $20 million in payments "from foreign sources" to the Biden family and their associates.

https://oversight.house.gov/release/comer-releases-third-bank-memo-detailing-payments-to-the-bidens-from-russia-kazakhstan-and-ukraine%EF%BF%BC/

@disclosetv

From an early date, commentators have noted that the response to COVID had all the look and feel of a coup attempt. The masks, the slogans, the symbols, the lies, the sudden inversion of long-cherished norms and values, the mindless acceptance of information from nefarious sources like the WHO and China. Something was seriously off, and it all seemed so obvious. Thus, one overarching question always lingered over the response to COVID. How were officials able to implement such destructive, totalitarian policies across the western world without intelligence authorities stepping in to stop them? A detached review of the evidence leads to a chilling answer— virtually all the most illiberal aspects of the response to COVID lead directly back to the western intelligence community itself.
Michael Senger

https://www.michaelpsenger.com/p/the-unwitting-coup-was-the-response