Monday June 30th 2008

Oil Rises to Record on Concern Iran Supplies May Be Disrupted
Crude oil rose to a record above $143 a barrel, completing the biggest quarterly increase in nine years, on concern Israel may attack Iran over its nuclear program and disrupt supply from OPEC's second-largest producer.Pressure on Iran to end uranium enrichment and the falling value of the U.S. dollar may drive prices to $170 a barrel, OPEC President Chakib Khelil said June 28. Kuwait, the fourth-largest OPEC producer, is taking precautionary steps to export oil if Iran closes the Strait of Hormuz, Kuna news agency reported.``We are going beyond rhetoric at this point,'' said William Adams, managing director of JKV Global in Chicago. ``Israel's intentions are pretty clear. That's going to keep prices pretty high.''

IMF finally knocks on Uncle Sam's door
IMAGINE the Reserve Bank of Australia, concerned that its friends in the city of Sydney (but perhaps Melbourne) who, having wallowed in wealth all their adult lives, were no longer gainfully employable and their wildly extravagant lifestyles were in danger, and, having the powers to intervene in the market, decided to do just that on their behalf.
Imagine them offering to enter the market and buy shares that would prop up the foolish gambles of the bankers, gambles they had encouraged them, until recently, to take by providing them with cheap money.

Gold Rises, Set for Quarterly Gain, on Dollar; Platinum Climbs
Gold rose in London, heading for its fourth straight quarterly gain, as weakness in the dollar spurs demand for the metal as an alternative investment to the U.S. currency. Platinum and silver advanced and palladium fell.Gold may extend gains as the European Central Bank prepares to raise borrowing costs on July 3, pushing the dollar lower against the euro, said Manqoba Madinane, an analyst at Standard Bank Group. The U.S. currency has fallen 7.7 percent against the euro so far this year, while gold has advanced 12 percent.

Citigroup says long-term gold price could double or even triple
Citigroup forecasts that "gold is likely to regain $1,000/oz by end-08 and to work higher through 2009-2010."In their recent Gold Commodity Update, Citigroup metals analysts John H. Hill and Graham Wark also predicted that "longer term, we believe that gold is capable of doubling or tripling from current levels."The Citi global metals forecasts have an upward bias, at $906/$950/1000 average in 2008/09/10.The analysts said "secular and seasonal factors favor gold" during the second half of this year. "We remain positive on gold, based on macro and supply/demand factors. The forces that have propelled gold for 5 years are firmly in place."

Fed's flinch galvanizes gold
Commentary: One expert sees price topping $1,200 an ounce this year
The Fed flinch galvanizes gold, and the gold bugs think victory is at hand.
Comex August gold closed Friday at $931.30. Australia's The Privateer, adhering to a refreshing national tradition of blunt expression, wrote: "In what is an all but unprecedented event, gold has soared almost $50 straight up in the immediate aftermath of an FOMC meeting at which the Fed did what (almost) everybody expected them to do -- precisely nothing."But it was not the Fed's lack of action that galvanized financial markets, it was the amazingly fatuous 'reasons' they gave for their decision not to decide in the official press release ... Then the stress really did make itself felt. ... Gold woke up with a vengeance.

Why I'm Still Holding Onto Gold
by: Duru
I regret that I do not own more. Gold gapped upwards almost four percent on Thursday, the day after the Federal Reserve demonstrated that is was still not ready to get serious about fighting inflation (and it cannot without crushing the fragile American economy). I am regretful that I did not turbo boost the gold impact with my favorite gold mining play, Goldcorp (GG), since on Friday, GG made a new all-time high and was up 13% for the week.Gold corrected steep and fast into the climactic March lows for the stock market, and numerous gold skeptics were quick to write off the yellow metal. I re-established a position anyway.

Government's Perennial Enemy
by George F. Smith
The gold standard, Ludwig von Mises wrote, “requires nothing else than that the government abstain from deliberately sabotaging it.” [p. 421] Much to the detriment of civilization, governments have undermined and debased the gold standard throughout much of history. With the aid of a state-sympathetic class of intellectuals, most educated people now regard monetary gold as a quaint contrivance of a bygone age--to the extent they give the issue any thought at all. Any suggestion that we adopt an authentic gold standard as a permanent solution to financial crises, dollar depreciation, and senseless wars is dismissed by the intelligentsia as hopelessly naive.

Gold to catch up with oil as inflation brews
NEW YORK (Reuters) - The specter of inflation and a bear market in equities is a powerful formula to rekindle investor interest in gold, which looks to be staging a catch-up rally after lagging other commodities in 2008.Bullion, which has often moved in lock-step with oil because of the metal's appeal as a hedge against inflation, has in the last several months parted ways with the energy and grain markets, which have soared to record highs.

Avoid Dollar `At All Costs,' Investor Rogers Says
Jim Rogers, who in April 2006 correctly predicted oil would reach $100 a barrel and gold $1,000 an ounce, said investors should steer clear of the dollar as the U.S. economy slows and favor commodities this year.The dollar has slipped 7.7 percent against the euro and 5.9 percent versus the yen in 2008 as the Federal Reserve cut interest rates to stave off a U.S. recession. Oil prices have doubled in the past 12 months, while gold is up 44 percent.Avoid the dollar ``at all costs,'' Rogers, chairman of Rogers Holdings, said in a speech in Shanghai today. ``The best investments in 2008 are commodities and natural resources. Agricultural prices have much higher to go over the next decade. We have a shortage of everything, including seeds.'

Corn Near Record, Set for Biggest Monthly Gain Since June 1988
Corn climbed close to a record, heading for the biggest monthly gain in 20 years, on speculation the U.S. government will cut its planting and harvest estimates today, after the worst Midwest flooding in 15 years.Before today corn prices rose 28 percent this month, the biggest such gain since June 1988. Futures reached a record $7.9925 a bushel June 27 as rising demand for grain-based ethanol and livestock feed eroded inventories and flooding damaged crops in the U.S., the world's top producer and exporter.

Oil rises above $141 on weak dollar, Israel-Iran tensions
Oil rose over $1, back above $141 a barrel, on Monday bolstered by a weak US dollar and continuing tensions between Israel and Iran over Tehran's nuclear programme that had helped oil hit a record near $143 last week.US light crude for August delivery was up $1,30 at $141,51 a barrel in Globex electronic trading by 11.53pm GMT, trading within range of the record of $142,99 struck on Friday.London Brent crude rose 98 cents to $141,29.

U.S. advised Iraqi ministry on oil deals
By Andrew E. Kramer
A group of American advisers led by a small State Department team played an integral part in drawing up contracts between the Iraqi government and five major Western oil companies to develop some of the largest fields in Iraq, American officials say.The disclosure, coming on the eve of the contracts' announcement, is the first confirmation of direct involvement by the Bush administration in deals to open Iraq's oil to commercial development and is likely to stoke criticism.

Shell chief says making progress on Iraq deal
MADRID: Royal Dutch Shell is making progress in talks on a deal to invest in Iraq's oil and gas industry, but is unsure when a contract will be agreed, Chief Executive Jeroen van der Veer said on Monday.Van der Veer told a press conference at the World Petroleum Congress he hoped a deal could be concluded in weeks rather than months, but said on specific timing: "I don't have a clue."

A terrible bust is born
By Roger Cohen
DUBLIN: There's no escape these days, is there? Even in the land of the "Celtic Tiger," whose growth rates were Europe's envy in recent years, a typical headline in The Irish Times runs: "Enveloping sense of gloom saps consumer sentiment."The recessionary Irish story is familiar, a mirror of developments in the United States, Britain and elsewhere: disappearing credit, plunging house prices, sapped consumer confidence, falling demand, lost jobs, and inflationary stirrings driven by record prices for oil and other commodities.

How to stop the Great Crash of '08
By Spengler
The oil price has doubled in the past year because the US Federal Reserve panicked over risks to the over-leveraged financial system and flooded markets with excess liquidity. The world is willing to pay arbitrarily high prices to hedge against inflation, but the cost of inflation hedges drags down the world economy. Last week's spike in commodity prices and swoon in global stock markets points the way to a deep and prolonged fall in economic activity.Breaking out of the death spiral still is possible. With mixed emotions, I propose a simple solution. In fact, a crash would not be an altogether bad thing for the United States

2008 Update
by Glen Allport
So far, 2008 has been a thrill ride of the worst kind: The Dow has given back nearly all its gains for the last two years, housing prices and sales continue dropping with "no sign of a bottom" (per S&P spokesman David M. Blitzer, quoted in Housing prices post record declines at CNNMoney.com), prices for food and other consumables are rising, "legions" of the newly-homeless are living in their cars or RVs, and oil is over $140/barrel, after hitting $100 for the first time on January 3 and then declining briefly to near $80. Gasoline has now been over $4/gal for some time, which is killing Detroit .

Global downturn to last longer than expected
Gary Duncan, economics editor
The global downturn may be deeper and longer than markets and economists have so far predicted while rising inflation may be stronger and more persistent, one of the world’s leading official financial bodies said today.The Bank for International Settlements (BIS) today warned that conflicting pressures from a more severe worldwide slowdown alongside stubbornly high inflation are set to aggravate the already sharp dilemmas confronting central banks on both sides of the Atlantic.

On the Impossibility of Limited Government and the Prospects for a Second American Revolution
by Hans-Hermann Hoppe
This essay was originally published in Reassessing the Presidency: The Rise of the Executive State and the Decline of Freedom, edited by John V. Denson, pp. 667–696. An MP3 audio file of this article, read by Dr. Floy Lilley, is available for download.
In a recent survey, people of different nationalities were asked how proud they were to be American, German, French, etc., and whether or not they believed that the world would be a better place if other countries were just like their own. The countries ranking highest in terms of national pride were the United States and Austria. As interesting as it would be to consider the case of Austria, we shall concentrate here on the United States and the question of whether and to what extent the American claim can be justified.

'The US is not a republic anymore'
An interview with Gore Vidal by Afshin Rattansi, Press TV, Tehran
Press TV:We hear that Michael Mukasey is going to become the latest of the President's Attorney-Generals to be subpoenaed, this time over his conversations with Bush and Cheney - does this show that Congress is serious about calling the executive to account?
Gore Vidal: No, Congress has never been more cowardly, nor more corrupt. All Bush has do is to make sure certain amounts of money go in the direction of certain important congressmen and that's end of any serious investigation. After all, one of the bravest members of Congress is Denis Kucinich who brought the article of impeachment in to the well of the House of Representatives.

And Then There Was One
by Don Bacon
"Axis of evil" was a term coined by United States President George W. Bush in his State of the Union Address on January 29, 2002 in order to describe governments that he accused of helping terrorism and seeking weapons of mass destruction. Bush named Iraq, Iran, and North Korea in his speech.Of course, they weren't an axis, that is they weren't an alliance, at all; in fact two of them, Iraq and Iran, had fought a bloody war with the United States supporting Iraq.
Anyhow, it looks like the "axis" is down to one.

Rogue Nation
by Charley Reese
One gets the impression that there are some people in Washington who believe that Israel or the U.S. can bomb Iran's nuclear reactors, fly home, and it will be mission complete.It makes you wonder if perhaps there is a virus going around that is gradually making people stupid. If we or Israel attack Iran, we will have a new war on our hands. The Iranians are not going to shrug off an attack and say, "You naughty boys, you."Consider how much trouble Iraq has given us. Some 4,000 dead and 29,000 wounded, a half a trillion dollars in cost and still climbing, and five years later, we cannot say that the country is pacified.

George W Bush 'raised $400 million for action against Iran'
By Toby Harnden in Washington
The White House has been reported to have secretly stepped up covert operations inside Iran with the aim of destablising its leadership.President George W Bush requested and received funding of $400 million (£200 million) for the plan after he made a secret appeal to Congressional leaders last year.The money is likely to be used for operations carried out by the CIA and other intelligence agencies, according to the New Yorker magazine.

Iran says Israel in no position to attack
TEHRAN (Reuters) - Iran's foreign minister said on Sunday he did not believe Israel was in a position to attack his country over its nuclear programme, while an Iranian general announced plans to prepare 320,000 graves for enemy soldiers.The comments were the latest in an escalating war of words between the arch-foes that have helped fuel speculation of a possible Israeli attack on Iran, the world's fourth-largest oil exporter, helping push oil prices to record highs.

Lieberman: U.S. May Be Attacked In 2009
McCain Supporter Says Terrorists Have Tested New Presidents By Launching Attacks In First Year Of Term
(CBS) In describing the reasons he believes the Republicans' presumptive nominee for president would be better prepared than the Democrats' to lead the nation next January, Sen. Joe Lieberman said that history shows the United States would likely face a terrorist attack in 2009."Our enemies will test the new president early," Lieberman, I-Conn., told Face The Nation host Bob Schieffer. "Remember that the truck bombing of the World Trade Center happened in the first year of the Clinton administration. 9/11 happened in the first year of the Bush administration."

Israel Lobby Authors Walt, Mearsheimer Travel to Tel Aviv
By Linda Mamoun, AlterNet.
Many Israelis consider the authors' critique to be not only thoroughly mainstream, but also perfectly obvious.
Tel Aviv -- like all of Israel -- is a stridently nationalist place. Israeli flags hang everywhere: over buildings, roads, city parks and beaches. They're mounted on cars and motorcycles. In residential areas, on the city's narrow tree-lined streets, you see flags draped over balconies, painted on ledges, growing in the bougainvillea. Some of the flags are festooned with lights. A fruit vendor may have so many flags bunched around his stand that you might not know if he is selling fruit or flags.

Hezbollah to strike Israel if it doesn't get minefield maps'
By Yoav Stern, Haaretz Correspondent
Hezbollah considers itself free to strike Israeli soldiers and civilians unless it receives maps of minefields and areas peppered with cluster bombs during the Second Lebanon War, a Lebanese journalist believed familiar with the Shi'ite group's thinking wrote in an article appearing Monday."This will be a sufficient reason for the resistance (Hezbollah) to carry out a thousand operations and to kill the enemy soldiers as it wishes, and perhaps its civilians, as long as the Israeli killing machine continues," Ibrahim al-Amin wrote in Monday editions of Al-Akhbar.

Mugabe hails his hollow victory with an oath on the Bible ... then unleashes his death squads
By Andrew Malone
With pomp, ceremony and a massive dose of defiance, His Excellency Commander Robert Gabriel Mugabe was yesterday sworn in as Zimbabwe's president.Inside the oak-panelled rooms of State House, as fighter jets roared overhead, he declared himself winner of an election in which he was the only candidate.Even before he took the oath, he had set in motion bloody recriminations against those who worked against him.Secret documents outlining the strategy against the opposition Movement for Democratic Change have been seen by the Mail.They reveal that, in the runup to the polls, Mugabe had plotted to 'eliminate MDC agents' and ensure that the identity numbers of all voters were taken - so they could be found later if they voted for the opposition.They state that forces are to 'kill MDC MPs' and that 'postal ballot boxes were to be stuffed in remote areas by death squads (who) have been instructed to abduct and kill whoever gets in his way'.Mugabe has now issued a chilling warning that more violence is to come.

Robert Mugabe hailed a hero at African Union summit
Sonia Verma in Sharm el-Sheikh, and Philippe Naughton
Robert Mugabe was hailed a "hero" by Africa's longest-serving head of state as he joined his fellow leaders at an African Union summit.The 84-year-old flew to the summit in the Egyptian resort of Sharm el-Sheikh only hours after being sworn in for his sixth presidential term following a one-candidate election run-off widely decried as at best a sham, at worst a travesty of democracy.He entered the conference hall accompanied by the leaders of Egypt, Tanzania - the AU chairman - and Uganda, and his enemies' hopes that he would be disowned by his peers were quickly dashed.

The disturbing way of death in Zimbabwe
A chilling experience in a place that is no longer properly chilled
If you don't have a strong stomach, then perhaps you should skip what follows. Because today I am writing about the mortuary at Parirenyatwa Hospital. Once this was a facility renowned throughout Southern Africa for high standards of hygiene. Now it is a place where the difficult way of life for the average Zimbabwean becomes an appalling and disgusting way of death.Many relatives who come to claim the bodies of their dear departed don't even get through the door. They stop outside, repelled, even nauseated. They clasp handkerchiefs to their faces, their natural distress re-doubled by what they are encountering. I must be frank and tell you what that is.

Got A Plan for Zimbabwe? I Don't
posted by Robert Dreyfuss
It's ugly in Zimbabwe. It was ugly in Iraq, too, in 2003. The world is full of ugly places. But let's hope the coolest of cool heads prevail before any sort of outside intervention is planned in that unfortunate nation.If anyone has any good ideas about how to help Zimbabwe, I'd like to hear them. Military interention is obviously a nonstarter. Tougher economic sanctions probably won't do much, except worsen the plight of the Zimbabwe people and tribes not favored by President Robert Mugabe. Yes, he's murdering and torturing members of the opposition. So what's your plan? Mine is pretty much: do nothing.

Farmer who exposed terror, Ben Freeth, is kidnapped with family
Jan Raath in Harare
Scarcely an hour before Robert Mugabe was sworn in yesterday for his sixth term as President of Zimbabwe, his henchmen abducted Ben Freeth, a white farmer who documented the pre-election terror in an article for The Times last Monday .Mr Freeth and his inlaws, Michael and Angela Campbell, 75 and 70, were assaulted and taken from their homes in Chegutu, about 90 miles (150km) west of Harare.

The world voices its revulsion as Mugabe is sworn in as president
By Daniel Howden in Harare and Anne Penketh
Robert Mugabe was sworn in for a sixth term as President of Zimbabwe yesterday ahead of his departure to an African Union summit where he is expected to seek recognition for his "overwhelming" victory in an election in which he was the sole candidate.The only president Zimbabwe has known since independence is facing mounting calls for fresh elections after African observers refused to sanction a poll dominated by a violent campaign of intimidation that prompted opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai to withdraw from last Friday's run-off.

South Africans 'still remain unsafe in their homes'
The sheer number of crimes being committed in South Africa is still at an unacceptable level, the South African Human Rights Commission (SAHRC) said on Friday.The decrease in reported crime, however, is encouraging, the SAHRC said.The rights body said its finding on the unacceptable level of crime is "exacerbated by the massive under-reporting of crime, which scathingly speaks to the continued mistrust and unwillingness of South African citizens to avail themselves to the protection of the state."

Gun Rights, the Militia, and Community
Posted by Christopher Roach
During the Cold War, conservatives rightly pointed out that the collectivist materialism of the Soviet Union was anti-human in the worst ways. It elevated the state to mythic proportions. It denied the value of individual human beings. It suppressed the human spirit and focused on minimal material comfort to the exclusion of other values. The state could undo social injustices, we were told, but conservatives reminded us that life always would involve certain unavoidable inconveniences and inequalities. No law could completely eliminate evil, and the attempt to do so would lead to other evils that have been the constant fellow traveler of the leftist program.

The Heller Misdirection
by William Norman Grigg
Freedom! Glorious freedom! A young American celebrates the freedom to pee under the kindly gaze of one of our nation's many fine paramilitary police officers.
"A nation of slaves is always prepared to applaud the clemency of their master, who, in the abuse of absolute power, does not proceed to the last extremes of injustice and oppression.~ Edward Gibbon, Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire.
Like the inhabitants of other formerly free societies, Americans are content to define "freedom" in terms of those liberties we are permitted to exercise. Yesterday's Supreme Court ruling in District of Columbia v. Heller (.pdf) is perfectly in harmony with this self-defeating concept of "freedom."

The Anthrax Letters: The Finger Points at Whom?
by Bill Sardi
Late Friday, June 27, 2008, when news viewing is low and Americans are busy finishing their work week and getting home for the weekend, and with many Americans on summer vacation and away from their normal sources of news, the Justice Department announces it has settled a lawsuit with "a person of interest" in the 2001 anthrax mail case. The "person of interest" was Steven Hatfill, identified by attorney general John Ashcroft as a potential suspect because he had worked at the Army's infectious diseases laboratory at Ft. Detrick, Maryland from 1997 to 1999.

Anglicans' new group denounces liberalism
THE Archbishop of Sydney, Dr Peter Jensen, has joined conservatives in Jerusalem angered by liberal thinking on homosexuality, to back the creation of a global fellowship that challenges worldwide Anglican unity but stops short of a formal split.Dr Jensen said the new fellowship of like-minded churches opposed to the consecration of homosexual clergy and same sex blessings, and bound by strict interpretations of the Bible, would "bring order out of the chaos" that erupted five years ago when the American Episcopal Church consecrated its first openly gay bishop.

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