china confidential
Friday, December 12, 2008
Gold Heads for Biggest Weekly Gain in Three Months
Bloomberg's Glenys Sim reports from Singapore:Gold traded little changed above $800 in Asia, headed for the biggest weekly gain in nearly three months, as the dollar declined, boosting the appeal of the precious metal as an alternative investment.
Bullion has gained 8.6 percent this week, the most since Sept. 19, as the dollar has fallen 3.9 percent against a weighted basket of six major currencies on speculation U.S. lawmakers will delay voting on legislation to lend the country’s automakers enough money to survive into the new year. The metal often moves in the opposite direction to the greenback.
“Gold has been tracking dollar movements very closely in the past few weeks and this relationship will continue through the end of the year,” Lu Wei, an analyst at Jiangsu Holly Futures Brokerage Co., said today.
Continue here.
US General: Iran Cooperating on Iraq
More evidence of a tacit understanding--or covert bargain--between the United States and Iran over Iraq.
The Los Angeles Times' Julian E. Barnes reports from Washington:A marked decline in the number of explosive devices coming into Iraq from neighboring Iran has helped reduce the frequency of deadly attacks against U.S. service members, a top U.S. general said Thursday.
The military's view reflects a growing belief that Iran has reduced its level of interference in Iraq and is no longer, as the U.S. alleges, providing weapons that are used to kill U.S. troops, potentially making it easier for the next administration to reach out to the government in Tehran.
President-elect Barack Obama said during this year's political campaign that he was willing to meet with Iranian leaders, a stance criticized by conservatives who cited Tehran's support of violent anti-U.S. Shiite militias.
Now, however, there has been a steep reduction in the use of armor-piercing bombs, also known as explosively formed penetrators, particularly lethal weapons that U.S. officials say often are designed or built in Iran.
There once were as many as 80 such attacks per month, but the number now is as few as 12, Army Lt. Gen. Thomas F. Metz said at a meeting with reporters.
Metz is director of a military organization whose aim is to reduce the effects of roadside bombs on U.S. troops.
Click here to continue.Thursday, December 11, 2008
Turkey Escalates War on Kurdish Terrorists
Foreign Confidential....
Turkey is continuing to escalate the campaign against the outlawed Kurdish Workers' Party (PKK) based in the north of Iraq.
PKK guerrillas have hideouts in the high, rugged mountains dividing Turkey from northern Iraq. On Oct. 3, 17 Turkish soldiers were killed when the PKK attacked the Aktutun Gendarmerie Border Unit in Semdinli, a town in the province of Hakkari.
The tension is mounting after the deadliest attack in the year and Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan and the military have pledged to intensify a campaign to crush the PKK, which was blacklisted by Ankara and the United States as a terrorist group.
The Turkish Air Force has conducted a number of airstrikes against PKK targets in northern Iraq since a week-long cross-border incursion into northern Iraq was launched the last incident.
The PKK, established in 1970, is a nationalist Kurdish guerrilla group that since the mid-1980s has been using violence to push for an independent Kurdish state in southeastern Turkey. Some half of Turkey's Kurdish population, 15 percent of Turkey's total of 73 million, is concentrated in the region.
The party is proscribed as a terrorist group in the United Kingdom, the U.S. and some other countries. In the past 10 years its demands have moderated to autonomy within Turkey. The party uffered a major reverse in 1999 when its leader Abdullah Ocalan was captured, but in 2004 the group felt sufficiently strong to resume its campaign of violence.
Since the armed struggle began, some 40,000 people have been dead.
- XinhuaChina Considering Methods to Aid Steel Industry
China is considering buying some steel products for its reserves and helping steel exporters by raising export tax rebates, Li Yizhong, Minister of Industry and Information Technology, said on Friday.
He said the government could allow companies to store extra products, or the government could purchase a certain amount so that production capacity does not stand idle.
Li added that China's top planning body, the National Reform and Development Commission, was working with other government authorities on the specific amounts and the method.
'We suggest the export rebates on several high-end steel products could be raised by several percentage points, while we restrict exports of some low end energy-intensive products,' Li told a news conference in Beijing.Belgian Police Nab 14 Al Qaeda Suspects
Foreign Confidential....
Belgian authorities detained 14 suspected Al Qaeda members Thursday, including one Belgian national who may have been given instructions to carry out a suicide attack against an unknown target.
Three of the suspects received training in Pakistan and Afghanistan and the person believed to be preparing an attack returned to Belgium on Dec. 4, the federal prosecutor’s office in Brussels said in an statement.
No weapons or explosives were found during 17 house searches in the capital of Brussels and the eastern Belgian city of Liege earlier in the day.
- BloombergAsian Stocks Fall on Bad News All Around
Asian stocks fell Friday, paring the benchmark index’s best weekly gain in a decade, after China and South Korea said their economic growth will slow and U.S. jobless claims soared.
China Mobile Ltd., the nation’s largest phone company, fell 2.2 percent in Hong Kong. KB Financial Group Inc. lost 9.3 percent after South Korea’s central bank forecast the economy will expand at the slowest pace in 11 years in 2009. James Hardie Industries NV, the biggest seller of home siding in the U.S., slumped 8.1 percent. Honda Motor Co. dropped more than 2 percent, paring losses after Senate negotiators reached a tentative compromise on a $14 billion automaker bailout plan.
“Right now, nobody can say what the global economy is going to be like next year,” said Choi Min Jai, who helps manage at least $2.5 billion at KTB Asset Management Co. in Seoul. “There are no clear signs of a recovery yet. Consumption will further contract if GM or any of the automakers goes bankrupt.”
- BloombergIraq Calls for US Talks with Iran
Foreign Confidential....
Iraq's American-installed, Shiite-dominated, pro-Iranian government is again reaching out to U.S. President-elect Obama--by endorsing his controversial position on diplomatically engaging Tehran.
Obama and his future administration must open dialogue with Iran and Syria to "solve" long-standing issues plaguing the Middle East, the Iraqi government said Thursday.
"I call on the new administration to open a dialogue with Iran to resolve the exceptional problems which are affecting stability in the region," government spokesman Ali al-Dabbagh said in a statement released at the outset of an international conference in Washington.
"We do encourage the administration to have a dialogue with Syria," Dabbagh added later Thursday in comments to reporters at the Pentagon.Russian Nuke Worker in Iran Found Dead
Foreign Confidential....
A Russian man working for a nuclear company in Iran has been found dead after disappearing 18 days earlier, Iranian media and a Russian spokeswoman said Thursday.
According to the state-owned Iran newspaper, the man's frozen body was found Tuesday at a recreational area in a mountainous area just outside of Tehran, where nighttime temperatures dip well below freezing.
Iran is building its first nuclear power plant with Russian help in the southern port of Bushehr, which is expected to go on line next year. Russia has backed limited U.N. sanctions aimed at forcing Iran to suspend its uranium enrichment program, but has staunchly opposed the U.S. push for harsher measures.
Meanwhile, a spokeswoman for the state-run Russian company coordinating the Bushehr project, Atomstroiexport, said the deceased was an employee and that he died in an accidental fall from a rock in the recreational area.
The spokeswoman, Irina Yesipova, would not identify the man or give specifics about his job. She said the area is a popular weekend getaway destination.
The Iranian newspaper said the Russian was a legal expert and that his death is being investigated. Also, the semiofficial ILNA news agency said the 57-year-old man was on a short assignment to Iran and disappeared Nov. 22.
The Iranian reports also did not identify the man.
- APVietnamese Sex Slaves Kept in Dog Cages
Vietnam may have attracted Western investment bankers before the global financial meltdown. But the country has a long way to go before it can really be considered civilized, as shown by the following report.
Approximately 130 women were held prisoner, some in dog cages, at a Ho Chi Minh City brothel.
The women were forced to work as prostitutes 18 hours per day, local media reports say.
The Thanh Nien newspaper said police found the women after launching a raid triggered by letters from the captive women, but the brothel owner got away.
The Vietnamese newspaper said the women, many of whom were from poor rural families, were kept as slaves in debt bondage and if they refused to perform sexual acts on customers they were severely punished by the owner, known as Tri, and his men.
"In nine months, I have seen more than 10 girls try to escape but they were captured, tortured by Tri and put in dog cages," said one of the rescued women.
POSTSCRIPT: Regarding dog cages, Vietnam, like China, Korea and Taiwan, are incredibly cruel to animals--especially dogs. Disgusting but true: dog meat is part of their everyday cuisine. Repeat: dog meat is part of their everyday cuisine. They justify their atrocities by saying that in their culture dogs are used for meat. This is not at all true--even in Korea or Vietnam. Dogs are pets there, too. The Korean Police even has a dog squad. Dogs trust their masters, and so-called dog farmers viciously exploit this trust to kill dogs.US Neo-Nazi Indicted over Threats to Canadian
Stewart Bell reports: An American neo-Nazi has been indicted over threats against Ottawa lawyer Richard Warman, whose successful fight against hate speech on the Internet has angered right-wing extremists.
Bill White, a Virginia white supremacist and self-styled "commander" of the American National Socialist Workers Party, was charged on Thursday with seven counts related to threats against five people.
The indictment accuses White of posting the home address of a Canadian lawyer identified only as RW on the Internet, and writing that he should be "drug out into the street and shot ... it won't be hard to do."
Click here to continue reading.Bank of America to America: Go to Hell
Dateline USA....
America's meanest and greediest bank--Bank of America Corp. (NYSE:BAC)--which glommed $25 billion in taxpayer-provided bailout cash--said on Thursday it plans to eliminate 30,000 to 35,000 jobs over three years as it integrates Merrill Lynch & Co and experiences weaker business activity amid the economic recession.
The cuts could affect about 11 percent of the combined companies' workforce of about 308,000 people, and are intended to help save $7 billion of annual costs.
BOA employs about 247,000 people and Merrill about 61,000. The merger values Merrill at about $20.5 billion and is expected to close on Jan 1, 2009, creating the largest U.S. bank by assets.
Charlotte, North Carolina-based BOA announced the cuts less than four weeks after Citigroup Inc set plans to eliminate 52,000 jobs, or 15 percent of its workforce, by early 2009.
BOA said its planned cuts reflect the pending merger, as well as "the weak economic environment, which is affecting the level of business activity."
The cuts will come from both companies and affect all business lines and staff units. Final numbers will not be determined until early 2009, and "as many reductions as possible" will come through attrition, the bank said.
UPDATE: A Wall Street source tells China Confidential BOA chairman and CEO Ken Lewis plans to gut Merrill, which he reportedly sees as a "wasteful New York operation." Although he claims that he has "gotten over it," Lewis, over the years, has made no secret of his disdain for New York City--and New Yorkers. There are reliable but unconfirmed reports that Lewis has called the city an "ethnic cesspool." Other BOA executives are known to have referred to it as "Jew York."Investing Expert Proposes Currency that 'Expires'
Today's Modest Proposal Prize (hard to know if this is seriously meant) goes to Vivian Lewis, editor of Global Investing. She writes:Every banknote should have an expiration date. If not used by the use-by it has to be turned over to the U.S. Treasury for a new banknote worth less money, discounted by a few percentage points. This is the currency equivalent of the T-bill auction this week, formalizing backwardation.
It might work a lot better than throwing money at the banks. The Japanese spent hugely trying to get out of a 10-year deflation. It did not work.
Now I do not want my scheme to become another variant on TARP or the auto-industry bailout-to-come, feeding into over-safe placement of the money. I want these banknotes to go to people who in any event will want to spend them: homeowners in arrears; the unemployed; those owing student loans; filers for credit card bankruptcy. If the money is not spent or used to repay debt, it will lose value, we will be telling the recipients.
Friday, 12 December 2008
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