🧐 "Italy officially holds the third largest gold reserves in the world, with more than 2,450 tonnes, behind the United States and Germany. Estimated at nearly €300 billion — or about 13% of Italy's GDP — these reserves are listed on the Bank of Italy's balance sheet. About half of this treasure is kept on Italian territory, the other half in the United States, while a very small fraction is located in the United Kingdom and Switzerland. Last month, senators from the Fratelli d'Italia party, led by Giorgia Meloni, tabled an amendment to the 2026 draft budget aimed at enshrining in law that the gold reserves ‘belong to the State, on behalf of the Italian people’. The ECB reacted immediately. In a legal opinion published on 2 December, it called on the Italian authorities to reconsider the proposal, stressing the importance of preserving the independence of the Bank of Italy and noting that the exact purpose of the measure remained unclear."

Forum Geopolitica

Who owns the gold of the Banca d'Italia?

There remains some ambiguity over who truly owns the gold held by the Bank of Italy. For the European Central Bank, settling this issue would threa...

@Gowron View quoted note →

Good night #nostr

Moving and hard to watch documentary from Al Jazeera on the 12-day war on Iran by the US and Israel. "When Israel and the United States launched a 12-day war on Iran, Donald Trump hailed it as “one of the greatest moments in history”. More than 1,000 people were killed in Israeli strikes that ripped through homes, hospitals and even a prison during visiting hours. Fault Lines travels to Iran to uncover the human cost of the conflict. We meet grieving families who lost loved ones, from 12-year-old Amir Ali and his father, to two-month-old Rayan and his parents — and follow the painful recovery of four-year-old Kian, who survived with life-altering burns. We also speak with the brother of Maryam Vahed Panah, killed in the attack on Evin Prison. The team secures a rare on-camera interview with Iran’s foreign minister as the country braces for the possibility of another war. Target Tehran examines the motives behind the attacks, which Israel and the US claim were centred on Iran’s nuclear programme, and asks the pressing question: why now?"

Great article by Jeff Rich from the Burning Archive. Worth reading or listening. Check it out. "The Black Legend of Russian History asserts that Russia is an expansionist empire. Always was. Always will be. Despite the fall of Tsardom and the USSR. Despite the evidence of a century of disavowal of imperialism since 1917. It’s just in their siloviki’s DNA. Look, they say, at the appetites of that tyrant, Catherine the Great."

The Black Legend of Russia's "Lost Empire"

Why Catherine the Great Will Rise Again in Odessa

Norman Finkelstein Exposes Israel’s Darkest Secret