Category: Europe

CIA torture: France should exit NATO says Le Pen

NATO is an opportunity for the United States to extend its influence

The shocking revelations of CIA torture techniques give France a reason to exit NATO, National Front party leader Marine Le Pen said on Saturday. The report on the CIA’s former interrogation practices has drawn wide criticism since its release.

“If indeed everyone is outraged by the tortures used by the US then, let’s leave NATO,” Le Pen said during an interview with Europe 1 radio channel. She wrote the same statement on her Twitter account.

The US Senate Intelligence Committee’s CIA “torture report,” which details the CIA’s use of torture on prisoners in the wake of 9/11, was released by the Senate on Tuesday.

Le Pen has previously criticized French President Francois Hollande’s close ties with the US and called on France to leave NATO.

Speaking to RT’s Sophie Shevardnadze in June, Le Pen said that NATO is an opportunity for the United States to extend its influence.

At a cost of over $40 million, the findings unveiled the “enhanced interrogation techniques,” or EITs, used within the walls of covert, overseas prisons by the CIA.

The report raised serious questions over controversial tactics which included sleep deprivation, waterboarding, rectal feeding, and others. Dianne Feinstein, the committee chair, admitted that the techniques were “torture,” though the word was never used in the report.

The findings also revealed that the CIA’s treatment breached the body’s legal mandate, as investigators said they found evidence of the intelligence agency’s systematic deception of Congress. Despite the methods used, the agency failed to gather information that foiled subsequent threats to US national security, the report found.

Since the report’s release, prominent human rights groups have demanded to prosecute the responsible US officials listed in the document.

Despite widespread criticism and a wave of outrage sparked by the results of the Senate investigation, the Department of Justice (DOJ) said on Wednesday that it will not be pursuing charges against those involved in the interrogations.

 

Austria mulling gold repatriation

The Austrian state audit court says the central bank should address the concentration risk of storing 80% of its gold reserves with the Bank of England, Standard reports, citing draft audit report.

The court has advised the central bank to diversify storage locations, and contract partners, Bloomberg reported.

The Austrian central bank is currently reviewing gold storage concept, and doesn’t rule out relocating some of its gold from London to Austria.

Standard cited unidentified central bank officials.

The gold reserves of the Oesterreichische Nationalbank (OeNB) and their deposits in the UK and in Switzerland are a recurring theme in political discussions.

Especially after the example of the Deutsche Bundesbank the Austrians are serious about bringing gold home.

Given the “high concentration of risk in the Bank of England” the bank is also reviewing the “actual spread of the storage locations”.

Austria has 280 tons gold reserves, according to 2013 annual report, but only a small part (17 percent) is kept in Vienna, while 80 percent of the reserves are located in London, and three percent in Switzerland.

In comparison, the German Bundesbank has 3400 tons of gold, about half of it in the United States.

The decision was taken to resettle half of the gold to Germany.

New DNA tests question Queen’s legitimacy

New DNA analysis of the remains of one of England’s most well-known monarchs, King Richard III, has led to fresh questions over the legitimacy of the present British Royal family, the House of Windsor.

“We question the legitimacy of the current Royal family. If they, the Royal heirs, are prepared to offer their DNA then ‘finality’ would be in order,” Craig Rex, who claims to be a 7th-generation descendant of another well-known English monarch, King George III, told Sputnik Thursday.

Historians remain split on the issue, but some researchers believe George Rex of Knysna in South Africa, was the legitimate first-born son of King George III of England. Now new speculation of a mismatch in the DNA of Richard III has reignited questions over the rightful inheritors of the throne of England.

“We do believe that there were strong ties between my ancestor George Rex of Knysna and the British Royal family at the time,” Rex said, adding that “There are contemporaneous documents, showing the Royal Family went hunting on the Rex estate during visits to South Africa. Why was there this strong connection when George Rex was the supposed son of a distiller?”

In a 1997 documentary, film maker Kenneth Griffith revealed “disturbing evidence” that George Rex was the “forgotten” legitimate son of King George III and should have become King of England. Griffith controversially claimed George III’s first marriage to quaker girl Hannah Lightfoot caused a scandal in the ruling establishment of the day, which was embarrassed about the King having married a commoner.

Second Child of British Royal Couple Expected in April
Griffith claimed the establishment then banished the legitimate off-spring to South Africa. But Griffith George III’s marriage to Lightfoot was never annulled and so, King George’s subsequent marriage to Charlotte Sophia of Mecklenburg-Strelitz in 1761 was illegitimate and so was the Royal status of all their subsequent heirs.

Royalist supporters maintain the documents Griffith produced were 19th century forgeries, aimed at discrediting the Monarchy, but despite descendants of George Rex willing to undertake DNA comparison testing the current Queen and her heirs remain unlikely to provide their own samples.

“Regarding DNA testing the current monarchy, I would welcome any scientific investigation that would reveal the facts that would stand up to peer review,” Trevor Rix, an administrator with a DNA comparison project, told Sputnik Thursday.

“Having said that, the current monarchy is very stable and has an enormous beneficial impact on the country both at home and abroad. I would therefore not want to see the boat rocked too much,” Rix added.

Queen Calls for Unity Following Scotland’s Independence Referendum
Rix, who helps run the “Rix worldwide DNA project”, believes that the evidence he has gathered suggests George Rex of Knysna was not related to George III, but added more DNA comparison was needed before any final conclusions can be reached.

“Although we only have the one Y-DNA test on a Rex descendant of George Rex to go on, that single test matches test results of many descendants of Rix families whose ancestors predate George III,” Rix told Sputnik.

“So, as with the Richard III case, the DNA does not lie. Both cases illustrate that hearsay and descendancy on paper may well lie,” Rix added.

A study published this week in the Nature Communications journal, following DNA tests on the remains of Richard III, produced clear evidence of infidelity in the Royal family line.

Scientists remain uncertain when the break in linage may have occurred, but Dr Anna Whitelock of the University of London told the BBC that any break in the family tree would be unlikely to affect on the current status of the Queen.

Germans take to the streets against Islam

Anti-immigration protest is sweeping across Germany, as thousands take to the streets against what they say is the growing “Islamisation” of the country.

Demonstrators have adopted the old rallying call of the protests against the East German communist regime that brought down the Berlin Wall 25 years ago, “Wir sind das Volk”. They say they want to preserve Western culture.

The protests come as Bavaria’s ruling Christian Social Union (CSU) is seeking to distance itself from a draft proposal for its party conference which said that immigrants should speak German not only in public, but at home as well.

Germany is now the second most popular destination in the world for migrants, after the US, and the country is struggling to cope with an unprecedented influx of asylum-seekers.

Thousands have defied sub-zero temperatures to join weekly marches each Monday in Dresden under the banner of Patriotic Europeans against the Islamisation of Europe, or Pegida.

The protests were started by a local man, Lutz Bachmann, with no background in politics. When he called his first demonstration in October, only a few hundred turned up, but the movement has snowballed, and last week 7,500 came.

Pegida has inspired similar movements across Germany. Though the numbers have not been as high as in Dresden so far, marches have been called in cities from Düsseldorf to Munich.

Bachmann has been at pains to stress that he is not opposed to genuine political refugees, only to economic migrants who “take advantage” of the German system, and has no problem with Islam but is worried about erosion of German culture.

Concerns for the German culture plunged Bavaria’s ruling CSU into its own controversy, after a draft proposal for the opening motion at the party conference called for immigrants to speak German at home.

“Whoever wants to live here permanently should be encouraged to speak German in public and within the family,” the draft said.

After a storm of criticism, including the Twitter hashtag YallaCSU, Arabic for “Let’s go, CSU”, and questions over how such a policy could possibly be enforced, Andreas Scheuer, the party’s general secretary, sought to limit the damage.

Auf Deutsch bitte!

The rise of immigration in Germany is prompting one of the parties in the government coalition to seek a requirement that would oblige all foreigners to speak only German in public and at home. The proposal has caused a wave of criticism.

A comrade in the coalition led by Chancellor Angela Merkel’s Christian Democratic Union (CDU), the Christian Social Union (CSU), is due to approve a party draft policy paper proposal on Monday, requiring immigrants to practically abandon the use of their native tongue.

In the paper, as quoted by Reuters, the CSU says: “People who want to remain here on a permanent basis should be obliged to speak German in public and within the family.”

CSU argues that “social interaction works only when all speak the same language”, and says that all foreigners who enter to remain will be offered a language training course.

It was not immediately clear how the party proposes to enforce such a rule without invasive surveillance of immigrants’ homes.

Wolfgang Bosbach, a member of Merkel’s conservative CDU, agrees with the CSU proposal, arguing that speaking German is crucial for the immigrant integration process.

“Language skills are of paramount importance for good integration opportunities. Therefore, it is important to speak with children at home also in German,” Bosbach told Bayerische Rundfunk.

Yet the new proposal was swiftly denounced by the other parties in Merkel’s government, including a senior official from the chancellor’s Christian Democratic Union (CDU).

The latest data released by Germany’s statistics office show record immigration last year, with most of the new arrivals coming from European Union countries like Poland, Bulgaria and Romania in search of employment. The influx of 1,226,000 people to Germany in 2013 shows an increase of 13 percent from 2012, the highest on record since 1993.

“It is not the business of politicians whether I speak Latin, Klingon or Hessian at home,” Peter Tauber, general secretary of the CDU, said on Twitter.

Yasmin Fahimi, for the Social Democrats (SPD), called the proposal “totally absurd”.

“The state has no role to play in deciding what language people speak within the walls of their own home,” Fahimi told German newspaper Bild.

Swedish government on brink of collapse

Collapse looms after far-right party vows to strike down government’s budget

Sweden’s minority, centre-left government teetered on the brink of collapse after just two months in office when a far-right party announced it would vote against the 2015 budget, effectively dooming it to defeat.

The anti-immigration Sweden Democrat party, which holds the balance of power in parliament, said on Tuesday it would support an alternative budget proposed by the centre-right Alliance opposition bloc, leaving the government isolated.

Prime Minister Stefan Lofven said last-ditch talks with Alliance leaders to resolve the crisis sparked by the unaligned Sweden Democrats, who want to cut the number of asylum seekers by 90 percent, had proved fruitless.

“There is no one on the other side of the table, it is meaningless to hold talks,” Lofven told reporters after the meeting at the government headquarters, saying he would decide how to proceed after Wednesday’s debate in parliament.

“We may call snap elections later, when the constitution allows. We could also resign and there are other alternatives,” he said.

Rival budget

The leaders of the Moderate, Centre, Christian Democrat and Liberal parties, which make up the Alliance, said they would not budge from their pledge to vote for their own bill.

The budget by the ruling coalition, formed by Social Democrats and the Green Party, would partly reverse tax cuts implemented by the Alliance during their 2006-2014 reign.

Parliament is due to vote on the budget on Wednesday.

One of Lofven’s option to salvage the crisis is to send the budget back to committee for amendments to try to win backing from some or all centre-right parties, though prospects of success are remote.

He could also resign and try to put together a new government – potentially without the Greens.

A last resort would be to call a snap election – something that has not happened since 1958. A vote could be called in late December at the earliest, with the elections taking place within the following three months.

Acting Sweden Democrat leader Mattias Karlsson said his party was flexing its muscles to force a reversal of Sweden’s generous stance on immigration.

“If the Alliance doesn’t change its policies [on immigration], we would try to bring down a government of those parties too,” he said.

Costs for asylum seekers including housing, language lessons and welfare allowances totalled 1.5 percent of the country’s 2013 budget, with Sweden the biggest per-capita recipient of asylum seekers and refugees last year, according to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development.

The Sweden Democrats doubled their support in the September election, taking 13 percent of the vote and becoming the third largest party in parliament.

Mainstream parties have shunned them, and the budget gives them a rare opportunity to show their political strength.

Source: Al Jazeera

Cultural Marxists persecute 3-year olds for ‘racism’ in Britain

Some years ago, the British Daily Mail reported that “toddlers should be taught about racism and singled out for criticism if they have racist attitudes, a Government-funded advisory group said”.

It told nursery teachers, playgroup leaders and childminders to record and report every racist incident involving children as young as three.

These could include saying ‘Yuk’ about unfamiliar food.

Even babies should not be ignored in the hunt for racism because they can ‘recognise different people in their lives’, a new guide for nurseries and child care centres said.

The instructions for staff in charge of pre-school children in day care have been produced by the National Children’s Bureau, which receives £12million a year, mostly through taxpayer-funded organisations.

The NCB, which describes itself as ‘an umbrella body for the children’s sector’, has long used its resources to campaign on controversial issues, for example in favour of a legal ban on smacking by parents.

It also runs the Sex Education Forum, a campaign for more sex education in schools.

The new 366-page guide, Young Children and Racial Justice, warned that ‘racist incidents among children in early years settings-tend to be around name-calling-casual thoughtless comments, and peer group relationships’.

It said such incidents could include children using words like ‘blackie’, ‘Pakis’, ‘those people’ or ‘they smell’.

Children might also ‘react negatively to a culinary tradition other than their own by saying “yuk”.’

Nursery staff are told: ‘No racist incident should be ignored. When there is a clear racist intent, it is necessary to be specific in condemning the action.’

If children ‘reveal negative attitudes the lack of censure may indicate to the child that there is nothing unacceptable about such attitudes’.

Nurseries are encouraged to report as many racist incidents as possible to local councils.

‘Some people think that if a large number of racist incidents are reported, this will reflect badly on the institution,’ it said. ‘In fact, the opposite is the case.’

The guidance said that anyone who disagrees is racist themselves.

It also suggests cultivating the home languages of new immigrants – despite Government anxiety to promote the learning of English.

It said: ‘English is now viewed as the major language of the world but this is not because it has any innate linguistic advantages – it is because English is the language of power in a world dominated by English-speaking peoples.’

Critics of the race programme for pre-school children labelled it ‘totalitarian’.

Author and researcher on family life Patricia Morgan said: ‘Stepping in to stop severe bullying is one thing, but this is interference in the lives of children. It smacks of totalitarianism.

‘It is regulation of private speech and thought. They intend nursery staff to step into children’s playground squabbles and then report them to the local council as race incidents. Who would ever have thought that the anti-racism crusade would go so far?’

Ten-year old criminally charged for ‘racist speechcrime’

A boy of ten has already been taken to court for calling a mixed race 11-year-old ‘Paki’ and ‘Bin Laden’ in a school playground argument.

The pair subsequently made up and became friends again, yet the Crown Prosecution Service decided to go ahead because the victim’s mother made a complaint.

The ten- year- old eventually appeared at Salford Youth Court in 2006 where he denied a racially motivated offence under the Public Order Act of using threatening, abusive or insulting words or behaviour with intent to cause another person harm or distress.

But District Judge Jonathan Finestein ordered the authorities to review their decision to prosecute.

He said of the defendant: ‘I shouldn’t think he understands Bin Laden or Al Qaeda. I’m not condoning what he supposedly said but there must be other ways of dealing with this apart from criminal prosecution.’

Prosecutors later decided not to pursue the case.

Thousands resign from church after same-sex marriage law

Thousands of people have resigned from the Lutheran Church in Finland, after the nation’s parliament approved a same-sex marriage law and the church’s archbishop expressed support for the vote, Finland’s Yle News reported.

By late Saturday, around 7,800 people had officially resigned from the state-supported Lutheran Church via an online service, which was specifically created to ease the registration process.

The resignation frees the individuals from obligatory church membership taxes, which is where the majority of the Lutheran Church’s income comes from. By the end of 2013, some 75 percent of Finns – 4.1 million people – were listed as members of the church.

The media suggested that the main catalyst was a comment made by the Archbishop of Turku and Finland, Kari Mäkinen, in support of the Friday-passed law for same-sex marriages. In a Facebook post, the church leader stated that he “rejoiced” after the vote passed.

“I know how much this day means for rainbow people, their loved ones and many others. I rejoice with my whole heart for them and with them,” Mäkinen said. “We are in the same situation as our neighboring Nordic Churches: our concept of marriage needs a fundamental examination. Speaking for myself, I think it is time for reconsideration.”

Media reported that most of the comments under the resignations express disapproval of the archbishop’s statements.

The Finnish Parliament approved the “gender-neutral” unions by a narrow margin of 105-92 on Friday.

The law gives homosexual marriages in Finland the same rights as heterosexual ones – couples will be allowed to share a surname and adopt children.

Finland became the 12th European nation to allow same-sex marriages.

Front National gets Kremlin loan

France’s National Front, is in talks with a Kremlin-linked bank to borrow €40 million to win power in France, Mediapart reports.

The Paris-based online investigative journal last weekend said Marine Le Pen’s party received a €9 million loan from the First Czech Russian Bank (FCRB), which is de facto owned by Roman Popov, a Kremlin-connected oligarch.

But it says in a second report on Wednesday (26 November) the €9 million is the tip of the iceberg.

It notes that its own investigation is corroborated by a member of the Front National’s political bureau.

“The first tranche was paid on a loan of €40 million … the tranche of €9 million has arrived, 31 others will follow,” the source said.

It also cites Bernard Monot, a National Front MEP, who told Mediapart: “We expressed, for sure, a need for comprehensive financing in our discussions with the bank … Our potential need until the [French] presidential and legislative elections [due in 2017] is €45 million”.

“We’re getting there step by step. We’re refining it as we go … We are on a long-term financial package”.

Wallerand de Saint-Just, the National Front’s treasurer, said he knows nothing about the larger sum.

But he noted the party needs between €35 million and €40 million to contest the 2017 votes.

He added he cannot exclude that larger sums were mentioned by Jean-Luc Schaffhauser, a National Front MEP who negotiated the FRCB deal, in Schaffhauser’s contacts with the bank.

Meanwhile, Le Pen herself tweeted on Wednesday evening: “Mediapart has lost its head. The amounts it talks about are a total fantasy. FN got a €9mn loan. Full stop”.

She told AFP the €40 million report is “fantastic, delirious”.

EU blacklist
Mediapart goes on to say that Le Pen personally sealed the FRCB loan on a “secret” trip to Russia in February.

It quotes an unnamed Le Pen aide as saying: “Marine Le Pen came at the final stage [of the negotiations]. Yes. To see where we are putting our feet”.

It notes that Schaffhauser, who was present at the meeting, introduced her to Alexander Babakov, a Russian MP, who was the “key” to the FRCB deal.

The EU blacklisted Babakov in September because he voted Yes on a Russian bill on the annexation of Crimea.

The 51-year old, who was born in Moldova, has business interests in the Czech Republic, France, and Ukraine.

According to documents published by Russian anti-corruption activist Alexei Navalny, the Russian MP owns at least €11 million of real estate in France via his wife, Irina Babakova.

According to Czech media, he was also the co-founder of a Czech-based shell company, Albion CZ, which was liquidated in June.

The National Front revelations come amid multiplying reports of Kremlin ties to anti-EU far-right parties.

German tabloid Bild on Monday cited German intelligence sources as saying Russia is financing the eurosceptic AfD party.

It said the Kremlin used middlemen to sell gold to AfD at below-market prices without AfD’s knowledge of who was behind the transactions.

The left-wing SPO party in Austria has also accused the far-right FPO of receiving Russian money.

AfD and FPO denied the claims. But their Kremlin links were on display this week in meetings in Berlin and Moscow.

Source: euobserver.com

British Navy jolted by Russian flotilla

The British Navy has been jolted by a Russian naval flotilla that entered the English Channel to undertake a series of exercises.

The British have described the flotilla as a “provocation”, although foreign vessels regularly pass through.

While the four ships – led by an anti-submarine vessel called the Severomorsk – are not breaking any rules, naval sources told The Telegraph they were monitored and escorted through the North Sea and into the Channel by a British patrol vessel.

An MoD spokesman said on Friday: “We are aware that four Russian naval ships have passed through the Dover Strait from the North Sea into the English Channel, which all ships have the right to do under international law.

“The ships were escorted by the Royal Navy warship HMS Tyne as part of her UK maritime security role and have now left UK waters.”

The ships are expected to pass through the Channel and head south to relieve other Russian vessels in the Mediterranean.

Russia’s Northern Fleet said the flotilla had passed through the Strait of Dover and anchored in the Seine Bay off Normandy to wait off a storm.

“While it is anchored the crew are undertaking a series of exercises on how to tackle infiltrating submarine forces and are training on survival techniques in the case of flooding or fire,” the fleet said in a statement, according to the state-run news agency, RIA Novosti.

The flotilla, which the British press ominously described as a “convoy” and “squadron” includes the Alexander Otrakovsky, an amphibious ship, a tanker and a tug.

Earlier this week, the Northern Fleet said that the ships had left their base in the Arctic port of Severomorsk on November 20. On its way towards Britain, the squadron carried out an exercise to simulate repelling an air attack after it was circled by NATO planes, the fleet added.

 

Russia sells strategic defence system to China

The first-ever contract for exports of the S-400 Triumf air defense missile system has been signed.

“A contract between Rosoboronexport and the Chinese Defense Ministry was signed at the beginning of this fall for the delivery of at least six battalions of S-400 air defense missile systems worth of more than $3 billion,” Vedomosti reported on Wednesday.

Negotiations on the delivery of S-400 systems to China had been in progress for several years and the Russian Defense Ministry said in 2011 that exports might begin no earlier than 2016 because the Russian Armed Forces would have to be provided for first, the newspaper said.

The S-400 Triumf air defense missile system is a product of the Almaz-Antei Concern and is based on the S-300 long-range air defense system, one of whose major buyers was the People’s Liberation Army of China.

Rosoboronexport fulfilled the most recent contract for 15 battalions of the S-300PMU-2 air defense missile system in 2010.

Following the breakup of the former Soviet Union, S-300P systems were exported to Vietnam, Algeria, Azerbaijan and Cyprus and systems from the Russian Armed Forces’ stock were supplied to Kazakhstan and Belarus.

The S-300 contract with Iran was cancelled for political reasons in 2010 and the delivery of the air defense missile system to Syria was suspended due to the ongoing civil war.

S-300V systems, another modification of S-300P designed for air defense units of the Ground Forces rather than area air defense, were supplied to Venezuela and Egypt.

Hi-tech gear stolen from Mistral

Electronic equipment, including hard drives and a device operating the helicopter carrier’s communications system, has been stolen off the Mistral ship built for Russia in the French port of Saint-Nazaire.

An investigation into the case of the missing equipment has been launched, French media reported. “Sensitive material” could allegedly be stolen from one of the amphibious-assault vessels, constructed by the French in a multi-million dollar deal with Moscow.

The items, which were announced missing on November 25, could have been stolen a week prior to that date, the prosecutor’s office of the French city of Rennes reported.

According to AFP, two computer hard drives, a motherboard, and a graphics card – as well as a device with a program operating the carrier’s communications system – have disappeared from the ship.

All the equipment was installed by French military electronics firm Thales, and could only be operated on the helicopter carrier.

A spokesman for French shipbuilder DCNS, Emmanuel Godez, confirmed the theft to TASS news agency, but said the unique articles – which he refused to name – did not contain any secret or sensitive data.

French ship builders STX, who are in charge of the Russian-ordered Mistral ship’s construction, also confirmed that some items went missing. The company said a relevant statement had been submitted by the corporation to French police.

According to Le Point magazine, a preliminary investigation did not find any evidence of a break-in. Russians are reportedly not suspected to be behind the theft, a spokesperson from France’s Defense Ministry said.

Czech officials receive poison letters

Security tightened at Czech govt offices as 2 ministries get poisoned letters. The Czech president is an outspoken critic of US meddling in Ukraine.

The Czech Interior Ministry is tightening security at government offices after envelopes with deadly doses of poison were sent to two ministries in recent days, Reuters said.

The two letters sent by mail from Sweden and Slovenia were intercepted before reaching the addressees of Finance Minister Andrej Babis and Interior Minister Milan Chovanec.

Two more envelopes, with harmless substances, arrived to the office of President Milos Zeman and a commercial television station. “We do not want to raise panic but… we need to adopt these security measures,” according to Chovanec.

Meanwhile, the Interior Ministry on Friday received another suspicious package and sent it for analysis.

As Dutch move gold out of US, French and Swiss call to follow

The financial crisis in Europe is prompting some nations to repatriate their gold reserves to national vaults. The Netherlands has moved $5 billion worth of gold from New York, and some are calling for similar action from France, Switzerland, and Germany.

An unmatched pace of money printing by major central banks has boosted concerns in European countries over the safety of their gold reserves abroad.

The Dutch central bank – De Nederlandsche Bank – was one of the latest to make the move. The bank announced last Friday that it moved a fifth of its total 612.5-metric-ton gold reserve from New York to Amsterdam earlier in November.

It was done in an effort to redistribute the gold stock in “a more balanced way,” and to boost public confidence, the bank explained.

“With this adjustment the Dutch Central Bank joins other banks that are keeping a larger share of their gold supply in their own country,” the bank said in a statement. “In addition to a more balanced division of the gold reserves…this may also contribute to a positive confidence effect with the public.”

Dutch gold reserves are now divided as follows: 31 percent in Amsterdam, 31 percent in New York, 20 percent in Ottawa, Canada and 18 percent in London.

Meanwhile, Switzerland has organized the ‘Save Our Swiss Gold’ referendum, which is taking place on November 30. If passed, it would force the Swiss National Bank to convert a fifth of its assets into gold and repatriate all of its reserves from vaults in the UK and Canada.

“The Swiss initiative is merely part of an increasing global scramble towards gold and away from the endless printing of money. Huge movements of gold are going on right now,” Koos Jansen, an Amsterdam-based gold analyst for the Singaporean precious metal dealer BullionStar, told the Guardian.

France has also recently joined in on the trend, with the leader of the far-right National Front party Marine Le Pen calling on the central bank to repatriate the country’s gold reserves.

In an open letter to the governor of the Banque de France, Christian Noyer, Le Pen also demanded an audit of 2,435 tons of physical gold inventory.

Germany tried and failed to adopt a similar path in early 2013 by announcing a plan to repatriate some of its gold reserves back from the US and France.

The efforts fizzled out this summer, when it was announced that Germany decided to leave $635 billion worth of gold in US vaults.

Germany only keeps about a third of its gold at home. Forty-five percent is held in New York, 13 percent in London, 11 percent in Paris, and only 31 percent in the Bundesbank in Frankfurt.