Asia

Via Erico Matias Tavares of Sinclair & Co.,

China as a Superpower – An Interview with Prof. Toshi Yoshihara

Dr. Toshi Yoshihara is a Senior Fellow at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments (CSBA) in Washington, D.C. Prior to joining CSBA, he held the John A. van Beuren Chair of Asia-Pacific Studies and was an affiliate member of the China Maritime Studies Institute at the Naval War College, where he taught strategy for ten years.

Via Mac Slavo of SHTFPlan.com,

Volcanic eruption in Alaska’s Aleutian Islands as seen from ISS.

Is a major seismic event headed our way?

There is no way to know for sure, but science warns that hotspots like the San Andreas fault in Southern California are “overdue” for the big one, which frequently occurs every hundred years or so. If the earth doesn’t release enough steam from time to time, larger pressures can build up, creating event more catastrophic disasters.

Thanks to a surge in prices from Canada and Asia Near East, US Import Prices soared more than expected in February. The 4.6% rise is the highest since February 2012, driven by a 40.5% surge year-over-year in Fuels and lubricants.

Notably US import prices from Mexico fell 0.3% YoY.

Finally, we have a 'snowden' event for the CIA and the inner workings of how the agency operates in the digital 'cyber' sphere.  Wikileaks released "Vault7" - a treasure trove of documents pertaining to their 'cyberwarfare' or in layman's terms, hacking operations.  Since we've released Splitting Pennies, in the hope of explaining how the world 'really' works - we've received mostly positive feedback, but many mainstream readers have accused us of being 'conspiracy theorists' - well now we have the proof.

There is a new powerhouse dominating the U.S. futures market for raw sugar contracts and it's creating a bit of confusion among the the more established trading houses of the world's most volatile commodity markets.  The firm is Wilmar International, a Singapore-based agribusiness whose major shareholders include the family of Malaysian billionaire Robert Kuok and Chicago-based Archer Daniels Midland.  Founded 26 years ago, Wilmar is one of the world's largest palm-oil producers but was essentially non-existent in the sugar market until just a couple of years ago.