China Confidential
Friday, November 14, 2008
China Gold Group: China Should Buy More Gold
China should buy more billion instead of dollars.
So says an official of the country's gold association.
Hou Huimin told Bloomberg that the Chinese government--the second largest overseas holder of U.S. Treasuries and the second largest gold consumer--should increase its bullion holdings to diversify its reserves because the dollar may decline.
"China should have at least several thousand tons of gold in its reserves, five to six times the officially announced 600 tons,'' Hou said.
The China Gold Association represents producers, traders and retailers. Hou is the group's vice chairman.
With Oil Down, Iran No Longer Gloating
Foreign Confidential....
The Iranian regime is no longer gloating over the U.S. financial crisis. Instead, the monstrous mullahocracy is plainly worried about its own financial meltdown.
Oil revenues, which make up 80 percent of Iran's foreign earnings, are falling sharply. The price of oil has collapsed to less than $60 a barrel, with some experts predicting it could fall as low as $50.
The Iranian budget is expected to ecord a sizeable deficit; and the downturn is certain to aggravate already volatile social tensions. Up to 20 percent of the Iranian population do not have regular work, while price increases have averaged 29 percent this year.
The Islamist regime has forced banks to lend at interest rates far below inflation. As a result, just when businesses and farmers need emergency lines of credit, the banking system is short of available capital. The credit crunch will have a particularly severe impact in rural areas, where crops have been devastated due to drought.Thursday, November 13, 2008
US Issues Import Alert for Chinese Food Products
Dateline USA....
A nationwide import alert has been issued for Chinese-made food products.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration says they might be contaminated with the toxic chemical melamine and warns against consuming several products from China including infant formula.
The agency will test a range of products containing protein in addition to dairy and dairy-containing products.
It says it will take appropriate regulatory action if necessary.
The import alert covers a range of products including beverages, candy, baby food and pet foods.
It allows inspectors to seize any products suspected of being contaminatedUniversity Teacher Arrested for Synagogue Bombing
Yet another reminder that poverty does not cause terrorism....
Amy Luft reports from Montreal:Canadian police on Thursday arrested a sociology instructor suspected in the 1980 bombing of a synagogue in Paris that killed four people and injured 20 others, officials said.
Hassan Diab, 55, was taken into custody on a provisional extradition warrant issued at the request of French authorities, Justice Department spokesman Christian Girouard said.
On Oct. 3, 1980, a bomb containing the powerful explosive pentrite hidden in the saddlebags of a parked motorcycle exploded outside the synagogue as hundreds of worshippers were gathered inside for a Sabbath service.
Three French men and one Israeli woman were killed. Around 200,000 people later marched through the streets of Paris to protest the attack.
The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-Special Operations was blamed at the time. Diab's name was on a list of former members of the Palestinian extremist group obtained by German intelligence officials.
France Interior Minister Michele Alliot-Marie welcomed the arrest, saying Diab was the main suspect in the attack.
Diab, a part-time sociology instructor at the University of Ottawa, said in an interview with the French daily Le Figaro last month that he was a victim of mistaken identity and had nothing to do with the attack.
Diab, of Palestinian origin, has Lebanese and Canadian passports and lived in the United States for several years before moving to Canada, according to a French judicial official. The official spoke on condition of anonymity in accordance with judicial policy.World's Third Largest Economy in Recession
Foreign Confidential....
The world's third largest economy is now officially in recession.
Germany, which is also Europe's largest economy, contracted by half a point in the 3rd quarter, following a point-four percent dip in the 2nd quarter.
The consensus view of economists is that the world's leading industrialized economies are all in recession, or will be soon.
Jorgen Elmeskov, who directs policy studies at the Paris-based Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, which groups 30 nations that embrace the free market under a democratic system of governance, told a reporter: "We are basically saying that the OECD [nations] are in recession and that the OECD is going to stay in recession for some time to come, and that the subsequent recovery is going to be a relatively slow one."
"The basic message is that we are in for a very troubled period," he said.Saudi King Meets US Jewish Leaders
Dateline United Nations....
Following his dinner meeting at UN headquarters--which was also attended by Israeli President Shimon Peres--Saudi King Abdullah bin Abdul Aziz met with a group of prominent U.S. Jewish leaders on Thursday.
Haaretz correspondent Shlomo Shamir reportsfrom New York:The meeting - which was attended by leading political and religious figures, among them Ronald Lauder, the head of the World Jewish Congress - was held as part of a United Nations-sponsored interfaith dialogue.
Also among the attendees were the head of Reform Movement, Rabbi Eric Yoffie; leading Orthodox Rabbi Marc Schneier; and former American Jewish Congress president Jack Rosen.
The two-hour meeting was also attended by 40 American religious leaders, including Christian clergy members and senior Muslim imams.
In his remarks to the gathering, the Saudi monarch commented for the first time on Barack Obama's victory in the U.S. presidential elections.
"The United States sent a powerful message to the world," Abdullah said. "The color of one's skin is not a barrier."
One of the representatives present at the meeting said it was apparent that the king sought to present himself as a religious leader while making an effort to steer clear of political issues.
Abdullah sought to emphasize the role of religion and faith in God. "God does not tolerate man who rises against his peer," Abdullah, who organized the interfaith conference, said on Thursday. "One mustn't adhere to the laws of man but to the laws of God." Russian Officials Weighing Gold-Backed Ruble
Foreign Confidential....
While the price of gold may be falling in tandem with that of oil, a major gold producing nation that also happens to be a major oil producer is considering making its own currency convertible into gold.
The currency is the ruble. Russian officials, this reporter has learned, are seriously considering proposals for a gold-backed ruble or a gold-backed special drawing right.
Also under consideration in Moscow: ideas for a currency backed by a basket of commodities, including gold and oil.
The idea of a gold-backed ruble is not new. The Soviet Union introduced an inflation-fighting gold ruble in the 1920s; but it was never redeemable for gold by the general public.
A more intriguing gold ruble scheme dates to the late 1970s when an international consortium led by Armand Hammer--the late Occidental Petroleum (NYSE: OXY) chairman who was suspected of being a Soviet agent of influence--obtained the marketing rights to specially made Soviet gold and silver coins commemorating the 1980 Moscow Summer Olympic Games. The United States and 60 other nations boycotted the Moscow games because of the 1979 Soviet invasion of Afghanistan; but the coins were marketed anyhow.
Informed sources say one of the consortium partners, David Karr, a controversial U.S. financier who was closely associated with Dzherman Gvishiani, the son-in-law of Soviet Prime Minister Aleksei Kosygin, proposed using the coin marketing enterprise as a platform for launching a gold bullion Soviet coin capable of competing against white-ruled South Africa's Krugerrand (the sale of which was being banned in many countries because of apartheid).
Karr, a former U.S. Communist Party fellow traveler who was also rumored to have had ties to the KGB, died mysteriously in 1979. He was found dead in his Paris, France home--a suite in the luxurious Hotel George V --following a trip to the U.S., during which, it was subsequently learned, he testified against Hammer before the Securities and Exchange Commission. The international wheeler-dealer allegedly accused the international oil tycoon--whose business relationship with the Soviet Union began under Vladimir Lenin--of bribing Gvishiani and other Soviet officials in connection with the coin consortium and other projects.
POSTSCRIPT: Turns out, the Bolshevik battle cry, "Peace, Land, Bread," should have included gold. Click here and here for the incredible story of Lenin's return from exile on a "sealed train." It was loaded with $10 million in German gold--for the Russian revolution--according to author Michael Pearson (The Sealed Train). He writes: "The final irony was that the Germans’ investment in Lenin was returned to them—with enormous interest. Under a supplementary agreement to the Brest-Litovsk Treaty in August 1918, the new Soviet government paid the Germans 120,000,000 gold rubles—at contemporary rates of exchange more than 240,000,000 marks and far more than the Foreign Office supplied to the Bolsheviks."
Friday, 14 November 2008
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