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| China-Japan-Koreas |
| StrategyPage NorK: Going for the Gold |
| 2007-01-02 |
| January 2, 2007: The United States has gotten North Korea's attention, and in an unexpected way. By telling the world's banks that they will be cut off from access to the U.S. banking system if they do business with North Korea, the North Koreans suddenly find that many of their criminal activities are much more difficult, if not impossible, to carry out. The American plan was accompanied by U.S. government officials giving a compelling presentation detailing North Korean crimes, and abuse of the international banking system. This convinced all the major international banks that it was not worth the trouble, and risk, to do business with the North Koreans. As a result, North Korea has put regaining access to the banking system at the top of its list of demands. The U.S. has told North Korea that, if the nuclear weapons and ballistic missile programs are shut down, along with the drug dealing and counterfeiting, American banking restrictions would be lifted. The North Koreans are fuming over that, and are getting desperate, as can be seen in the attempt to sell their gold reserves. December 28, 2006: North Korea is attempting to circumvent American banking restrictions by registering with a London gold trading organization, in preparation for a sale of its gold reserves (of some $25 billion). The gold is the North Korean emergency reserve, and when it is being sold, it means the north is out of options. Several hundred million dollars worth of gold was sold in 2006, apparently in barter deals, outside the banking system. |
| Posted by:ed |
| #11 China just needs to wait a generation & the Russian population will drop so low their land will be available for anyone who walks in. I believe that was one of the strategic concepts of Operation Barbarossa. |
| Posted by: badanov 2007-01-02 23:14 |
| #10 China just needs to wait a generation & the Russian population will drop so low their land will be available for anyone who walks in. |
| Posted by: Anguper Hupomosing9418 2007-01-02 23:02 |
| #9 Showdown/Rumble coming down for IRAN + NORTH KOREA. Lest we fergit TAIWAN > LUCIANNE.com > Taiwan Prez CHEN = reaffirms that Taiwan is NOT PART OF CHINA + IS A SOVEREIGN NATION; and ETHIOPIA-SOMALIA, i.e. historical Muslim efforts /beliefs to avenge ANY AND ALL DEFEATS/SETBACKS, ESPEC MILITARY, OF ISLAM AS IMPOSED BY NON-MUSLIMS = BLAMED ON NON-MUSLIMS. The only good news is that everyone knows CHINA's need of "living space" for its 1.4Bilyuuhn people and growing > means must inevitably, predomin, come up against and mil challenge RUSSIA, notsomuch the smaller nations of Asia-Pacific, and RUSSIA KNOWS IT. SPACEWAR > RUSSIA > Immigration and other issues affecting the Russian Far East-Siberia AFFECTS RUSSIA'S NATIONAL SECURITY [also read, NATIONAL INTEGRITY/COHESION]. |
| Posted by: JosephMendiola 2007-01-02 21:19 |
| #8 Who got the set of balls for xmas? Condi? I'm getting so pessimistic about NorK and Iraq that the first thought that came into my mind is that it didn't take any balls to do this. Too many places to distribute blame if it doesn't work perfectly according to any detractors, and even the detractors don't really care about moves like this. Looks like we do have some assets we can pull from them after all! Anyway, having thought about the nuke thing, I don't know if NorK is going to be able to sell its nukes for anything like what they seem to think that they're "worth". If a NorK NooK shows up on the black market, it's going to mean a boatload of trouble for the NorKs. And they're going to need more than just cash to make it worth it at that point. They are going to need billions of dollars or major ongoing support from whatever nation or group bought it. The paper trail would be day-glo orange and a mile wide, and not even terrorists are that dumb. It just seems to me it would be tough to do. The NorKs may sell them or give them away out of desperation, but it would be admitting that they only had minutes left to live and wanted to take a piece of the US down with them. Buuuuut Kimmie is almost as loony as Murtha or Sheehan, so you never can tell for sure . . . . |
| Posted by: gorb 2007-01-02 19:09 |
| #7 Choreographed outrage of the "left" in 5... 4... 3... |
| Posted by: Excalibur 2007-01-02 18:23 |
| #6 I wonder if this is an indicator that the nukes don't work like they're supposed to. |
| Posted by: Mike 2007-01-02 18:03 |
| #5 Wait a second! Who got the set of balls for xmas? Condi? Masterstroke. |
| Posted by: Cyber Sarge 2007-01-02 16:32 |
| #4 What will be the effect of that much gold on the market? Will prices be depressed? $25B? I am no economist, but it seems to me that it would barely even be noticed by the world economy. It seems the NorK economy would because they seem to go gaga over every $1M! |
| Posted by: gorb 2007-01-02 15:45 |
| #3 What will be the effect of that much gold on the market? Will prices be depressed? |
| Posted by: Ebbang Uluque6305 2007-01-02 14:44 |
| #2 Yup, sell them or use them, because they've not been benefitting Kimmie much just sitting there. |
| Posted by: Steve White 2007-01-02 14:22 |
| #1 ...Actually, they have one option left, and it's a scary one: selling the nukes. Mike |
| Posted by: Mike Kozlowski 2007-01-02 13:17 |