Wednesday July 2nd 2008

Global listed gold sector on the up
Led by Goldcorp, trading at record levels, listed gold stocks run hard and move sharply back up the global resources performance ladder.
Most listed gold stocks continued to surge on Tuesday as the dollar bullion price rose to multi month highs above $940 an ounce. Gold bullion investors appear to be reasserting the metal once again as a high-beta investment, a characteristic shared in particular with silver and agricultural futures, commodities that tend to outperform during times of crisis, or perceived crisis.On Tuesday gold bullion, and other precious metals prices, were again lifted by a weaker dollar, growing geopolitical concerns in the Middle East, and renewed concerns over roaring inflation as energy futures continued to trade at or close to record highs. Long dated NYMEX crude oil hit fresh records, along with benchmark Appalachian coal futures.

Renewed claims gold will hit $US1000 an ounce
Citi sure knows how to wipe away those end of the worst financial year since 1930 blues with a nifty bit of research on the gold industry which, in part, concludes that the gold price is capable of “doubling or tripling from current levels”.By the end of the year, according to Citi, the gold price should be up around the $US1000 an ounce mark as financial stresses keep hammering away at the US and European markets and the savvy punters seek hard assets.
Apparently China is the world’s biggest buyer of jewellery gold with some 93 tonnes of the yellow metal finding its way onto the fingers, necks and earlobes of hedonistic Chinese gold lovers during the six months to the end of March.

Fed Vice Donald Kohn Urges Emerging Markets to Drop the Dollar Peg
By Dan Denning
Fed Vice Chairman Donald Kohn said the world would be a lot better if emerging markets simply dropped their dollar pegs. This means they would stop importing U.S. inflation by matching the Fed rate cut for rate cut.In a speech earlier this week Kohn said, "In those countries where strong commodity demands are associated with rapid growth in aggregate demand that outstrips potential supply, actions to contain inflation by restraining aggregate demand would contribute to global price stability."As Aussies know from yesterday's credit figures, you can reduce aggregate demand in an economy by raising interest rates. But you can't reduce demand in your own economy if your interest rates and your currency are pegged to the value of the U.S. dollar. This is the dilemma much of the developing world finds itself in.

Oil rises above $142 on Israeli threats
Bluffing or not, Israeli threats of attacking Iranian sites continues to influence oil market.
SINGAPORE - Oil rose more than $1 a barrel on Wednesday, within sight of Monday's record high above $143 on forecasts that global supply will lag demand and expectations the European Central Bank will raise interest rates later this week.The International Energy Agency on Tuesday cut its global oil supply capacity forecast by 2.7 million barrels per day (bpd) to 95.33 million bpd by 2012, boosting prices already lifted by Israeli threats against Iran and Tehran’s potential retaliation.Traders also bought crude on the weak dollar, which softened against the euro on Wednesday ahead of Thursday's European Central Bank meeting, which is widely expected to conclude an interest rate hike to deal with quickening euro zone inflation.

Iran says any attack would provoke fierce reaction
MADRID, Spain (AP) - Any attack on Iran would provoke an unimaginably fierce response and add to further turmoil to the already seething oil market, the country's oil minister warned Wednesday.At the same time, Gholam Hossein Nozari sought to calm fears that Tehran might cut oil deliveries to consuming countries, suggesting that Iran would continue supplying the market even if struck by Israel or the United States.Tehran "is not going to be quiet," if attacked, Nozari told reporters. It's "going to react fiercely, and nobody can imagine what would be the reaction of Iran," he added.

Middle East war threat rattles oil markets
It is unclear how energy problem will be resolved, and talk of an attack on Iran does not help, reports Ambrose Evans-Pritchard
A supply crunch and mounting fears of an Israeli air strike on Iran propelled oil to $143 a barrel at one stage yesterday, prompting warnings from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) of a severe economic crisis in poorer regions. "Some countries are at a tipping point," said Dominique Strauss-Kahn, the IMF's managing-director."If food prices rise further and oil prices stay the same, some governments will no longer be able to feed their people."

U.S. won't let Iran shut Gulf
ABU DHABI: The United States will not allow Iran to block the Gulf, the waterway that carries crude from the world's largest oil exporting region, the U.S. Navy's Fifth Fleet said on Wednesday."Iran will not attempt to close the Strait of Hormuz and we will not allow them to close the Strait of Hormuz. I can't say it anymore clearly than that," Vice-Admiral Kevin Cosgriff, the commander of the U.S. Navy's Fifth Fleet, told a conference on Gulf naval security in Abu Dhabi.The head of Iran's Revolutionary Guards said in remarks published last week that Tehran would impose controls on shipping in the Gulf and the strategic Strait of Hormuz waterway if it was attacked.

Fuel protest: Hauliers threaten to bring London to a standstill
By Aislinn Simpson
Hundreds of hauliers are expected to bring London to a standstill in what is expected to be one of the largest ever protests over rocketing fuel prices.Lorry drivers are converging on London from the North and South in a protest over the price of fuel. Police-escorted convoys of up to 1,000 lorries will travel to the heart of London to lobby MPs over fuel bills.The action follows go-slow protests in other parts of the country, including the M6 and in Manchester.Since the Budget, oil prices have hit a new high of $142 and diesel prices have reached £1.32 a litre at the pumps.

Judge clears U.S. request for UBS clients' names
By Lynnley Browning and Julia Werdigier
A U.S. judge cleared the way on Tuesday for prosecutors to force the Swiss banking giant UBS to turn over the names of wealthy clients as part of an investigation of its offshore private banking practices.An order signed by Judge Joan A. Lenard of U.S. District Court in Miami gives investigators the authority to request the information from UBS. A spokesman for the Internal Revenue Service said the agency, which was working with U.S. prosecutors, was expected to serve UBS with a summons for names within several days. The bank can either turn the names over — an unprecedented move for a Swiss bank under secrecy laws — or appeal the judge's ruling.

America's Underground
by Jeffrey A. Tucker
These were sharp businessmen, the four guys who pointed out that there were three dead trees in my backyard that needed to be cut down lest they attract horrible bugs that would infest my entire property. They would cut them down and remove them for $475.In cash.We dickered back and forth and finally settled on $350. In cash.They attacked the trees like ants on ice cream. In 45 minutes, the trees were gone without a trace.I paid them. In cash.I didn't break any laws in paying them this way. They broke no laws in accepting cash only. The state is egregiously invasive in our financial affairs but it hasn't actually banned the use of cash.

Funding the Bacchanalian excess
By The Mogambo Guru
I could see that the audience of reporters and passers-by was getting nervous, as I had just finished going through the explanation of how the US Federal Reserve creates inflation in the money supply by creating too much money and credit, which causes inflation in things as all of this money enters the economy, and then eventually the inflations in stocks, bonds, houses and the size of government becomes so great that further infusions of money must increase in proportion to the increase in the aforementioned prices of the stocks, bonds, houses and size of government if they are to maintain a static percentage growth, and some of all that increasing avalanche of money starts getting into bidding wars for commodities, increasing the prices of commodities.

The Capsizing of American Democracy
by James Bovard,
American democracy is capsizing as a result of the vast increase in the number of government dependents and government employees. This has created a voting bloc that overwhelms every other potential force. H.L. Mencken quipped in the 1930s that the New Deal divided America into “those who work for a living and those who vote for a living” — a division truer now than ever before.In the era of the Founding Fathers, few things were more dreaded than “dependency” — not being one’s own man, not having a truly independent will because of reliance on someone or something else to survive. One of the glories of America was the possibility that common people could become self-reliant with hard work and discipline.

Ex-Agent Says CIA Ignored Iran Facts
By Joby Warrick
A former CIA operative who says he tried to warn the agency about faulty intelligence on Iraqi weapons programs now contends that CIA officials also ignored evidence that Iran had suspended work on a nuclear bomb.The onetime undercover agent, who has been barred by the CIA from using his real name, filed a motion in federal court late Friday asking the government to declassify legal documents describing what he says was a deliberate suppression of findings on Iran that were contrary to agency views at the time.The former operative alleged in a 2004 lawsuit that the CIA fired him after he repeatedly clashed with senior managers over his attempts to file reports that challenged the conventional wisdom about weapons of mass destruction in the Middle East. Key details of his claim have not been made public because they describe events the CIA deems secret.

'Weak' Iran ripe to be attacked
By Gareth Porter
WASHINGTON - New arguments by analysts close to Israeli thinking in favor of United States strikes against Iran cite evidence of Iranian military weakness in relation to the US and Israel, and even raise doubts that Iran is rushing to obtain such weapons at all.The new arguments contradict Israel's official argument that it faces an "existential threat" from an Islamic extremist Iranian regime determined to get nuclear weapons. They suggest that Israel, which already has as many as 200 nuclear weapons, views Iran from the position of the dominant power in the region rather than as the weaker state in the relationship.The existence of a sharp imbalance of power in favor of Israel and the United States is the main premise of a recent analysis by Patrick Clawson and Michael Eisenstadt of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy (WINEP) suggesting that a US attack on Iranian nuclear facilities is feasible.

Tehran puts on a show of strength
By Sami Moubayed
"Should it happen that a strong government finds it may with impunity destroy a weak people, then the hour strikes for that weak people to appeal to the League of Nations to give its judgment in all freedom. God and history will remember your judgment."- Haile Selassie, Emperor of Ethiopia
DAMASCUS - Haile Selassie delivered these words in an address to the league while the fascist army of Italy's Benito Mussolini was invading Ethiopia in 1936. The Italian boycotted the session, and Italian journalists booed and hissed as the emperor was making his speech - not in French although he was fluent at it - but in Amharic.TIME magazine labeled Haile Selassie man of the year, but the league failed at doing more than imposing partial - and ineffective - sanctions on Rome.

African Dictatorships and Double Standards
by Stephen Zunes
The Bush administration has justifiably criticized the Zimbabwean regime of liberator-turned-dictator Robert Mugabe. It has joined a unanimous UN Security Council resolution condemning the campaign of violence unleashed upon pro-democracy activists and calling for increased diplomatic sanctions in the face of yet another sham election. In addition, both the House and the Senate have passed strongly worded resolutions of solidarity with the people of Zimbabwe in support of their struggle for freedom and democracy.However, neither the Republican administration nor the Democratic-controlled Congress is sincerely concerned about human rights and democratic elections as a matter of principle.

Robert Mugabe cements grip as African Union ducks censure
Sonia Verma In Sharm El-Sheikh
African Union leaders ended their summit in Egypt yesterday refusing to condemn President Mugabe, cementing his hold on power even as they urged the establishment of a national unity government in Zimbabwe.“He has come here as President of Zimbabwe. He will go home as President of Zimbabwe,” George Charamba, Mr Mugabe’s spokesman, said.The AU’s final resolution fell short of the full censure sought by the Zimbabwean Opposition and came as both camps signalled that any prospect of talks leading to possible powersharing had faded.

Zimbabwean farmer Ben Freeth talks of ordeal of abduction by mob
Catherine Philp in Harare
The white farmer who was brutally beaten after writing of the terror campaign in rural Zimbabwe has accused President Mugabe of conducting a racial war to drive out the country’s remaining whites and seize their assets.From his hospital bed Ben Freeth told The Times that Mr Mugabe had campaigned on a bogus promise of black empowerment, vowing to return white-owned land to the masses. But in reality, Mr Freeth charged, his intention was to drive out all whites from Zimbabwe and use their assets to pay his debts to the henchmen who have terrorised the opposition.

Tackling South Africa's land issue...
The Expropriation Bill has negative consequences for South Africa and will leave the country lagging behind successful economies, a group of concerned parties said on Wednesday.The interim committee for the defence of property rights said the bill was based on the perception that white South Africans had no moral right to own land.The group, consisting of organisations and political parties Agri SA, Afriforum, the Afikanerbond and the Democratic Alliance, said it would address the implications of the bill at a number of conferences in July.Other members included the FW de Klerk Foundation, the ACDP, the Agricultural Employers Organisation and the National Taxpayers Union.

Couple's killers took nothing
Johannesburg - An elderly cancer patient and his wife have been shot on the N12 on the East Rand - without their attackers robbing them of their vehicle or any of their possessions.Willem Ras, 66, who also had Parkinson's disease, and his wife, Yvonne, 64, were attacked near Eldorado Park on Saturday night.Willem was first shot in his back and then shoved out of the moving car. He died on the road.Yvonne was shot in the neck and left for dead in the vehicle. She died from her wound in Garden City Hospital in Johannesburg on Tuesday.The couple were on their way back to their flat in Alberton at about 22:00 after having visited their only child, Mathie Potgieter, 37, and their two grandchildren in Randfontein.Police said the killers presumably pulled the couple off the road somewhere and jumped into the car with them.

Criminals feel 'entitled' to steal
Pretoria - Criminals feel entitled to take from those who have more than they do.
This transpired from a study on convicted house robbers, conducted to establish why they committed this crime.Senior researcher at the Institute for Security Studies (ISS), Dr Johan Burger, said on Tuesday the study found that house robbers targeted "richer" suburbs."Many of the more affluent suburbs are surrounded by poorer residential areas (like squatter camps)", said Burger."For these house robbers, anyone who has more than they do is well-off."The house robbers often focus on the 'richer' neighbouring suburbs closest to them. They feel they are entitled, for their own sakes, to take from those who have a lot".

Inject some intelligence into the race debate
Racists and their critics alike are guilty of generalising about race, says Kenan Malik
I am taking part this week in a debate on race and intelligence at the Science Museum, nine months after the Nobel Laureate James Watson was banned from speaking there, thanks to some incendiary comments he made about race and intelligence. "I am inherently gloomy about the prospect of Africa," he told the Sunday Times. "All our social policies are based on the fact that their intelligence is the same as ours ­ whereas all the testing says not really."
Censure was swift and universal. Watson was stripped of his chancellorship of the prestigious Cold Spring Harbor laboratory in New York. The Science Museum cancelled his lecture because Watson's comments had "gone beyond the point of acceptable debate".

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