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Archive for March 7th, 2013


Exchange Money Conversion to Foreign Currency

Exchange Money Conversion to Foreign Currency (Photo credit: epSos.de)

Gedankenexperiment

Imagine the following: you read in a newspaper that a group of investors has sold US dollars to the tune of $820 million over the past two months for other currencies. This incidentally represents approximately 0.082% of the broad dollar money supply TMS-2 (which amounts to roughly $9.3 trillion at present). It means they would have been selling roughly $20 million per trading day. You then learn that $4 trillion of US dollars are traded in global currency markets every single trading day. Would you believe that their selling has influenced the exchange value of the dollar beyond a rounding error?

And yet, we are supposed to believe that the selling of an equivalent amount of gold from the gold holdings of exchange traded funds over the past two months (they have sold 140 tons, or 0.082% of the total global gold supply) has greatly influenced the gold price.

more here

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Clergy sex abuse victims listed a “dirty dozen” potential papal candidates Wednesday and urged the Roman Catholic Church to “get serious” about protecting children, helping victims and exposing corruption.

“We want to urge Catholic prelates to stop pretending that the worst is over regarding the clergy sex abuse and cover up crisis,” said David Clohessy, director of the US-based Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, or SNAP.

“Tragically, the worst is almost certainly ahead,” he said, adding that the truth of “widespread, longstanding and deeply-rooted” abuse and coverups has “yet to surface in most nations.”

The organization cited a dozen cardinals from the United States, Mexico, Honduras, Italy, Australia, Czech Republic, Canada, Argentina and Ghana accused of protecting pedophile priests and making offensive public statements.

They are all considered to be contenders to succeed Pope Benedict XVI, who was criticized for his handling of the sex abuse scandals that have rocked the church in the United States and Europe.

SNAP also opposes electing any member of the Roman Curia, the administrative branch of the Holy See.

“We feel no current Vatican ‘insider’ has the will to truly ‘clean house’ in the Vatican and elsewhere,’” Clohessy said in a statement.

“Promoting a Curia member would discourage victims, witnesses, whistleblowers and advocates from reporting wrongdoing.”

Public denunciations of the media for attacking the church and assertions that claims of widespread abuse were overstated were often cited among reasons to blacklist a papal candidate.

Cardinal Peter Turkson of Ghana made the list for claiming there were few child molesting clerics in Africa because they didn’t tolerate gay people there.

Cardinal Dominik Duka of Czech Republic was cited for claiming that only 10 percent of accusations against priests are proven.

Efforts to maintain secrecy rather than report abuse to law enforcement also led to condemnation.

Cardinal Norberto Rivera Carrera of Mexico made the list for claiming there are no “documented” cases of abuse against minors in Mexico and allegedly concealing multiple child sex abuse allegations.

Cardinal Tarsicio Bertone of Italy was cited for saying “if a priest cannot confide in his bishop for fear of being denounced it would mean there is no more liberty of conscience” and blaming the child sex abuse epidemic on the “homosexual infiltration” of the clergy.

Cardinal Oscar Rodriguez Maradiaga of Honduras was blacklisted for opposing the reporting of clerical sexual abuse to civil authorities and for saying the US media was bent on “persecution of the church.”

Three US bishops made the list for failing to protect parishioners from known abusers and undermining reform efforts: Cardinal Timothy Dolan of New York, Cardinal Donald Wuerl of Washington and Cardinal Sean O’Malley of Boston.

Cardinal Leonardo Sandri of Argentina was dismissed as a “consummate Vatican insider” who publicly supported a notorious Mexican abuser, Father Marcial Maciel.

Cardinal Angelo Scola of Italy was blacklisted for minimizing church wrongdoings and calling coverage of Benedict’s role in the crisis an “iniquitous humiliation.”

Cardinal George Pell of Australia was cited for claiming the church was a victim of “smears,” insisting that there are no cover ups and for trying to seal a potentially damming court file.

Cardinal Marc Ouellet, of Quebec, Canada was cited for refusing to meet with sex abuse victims and brokering a deal which SNAP said let “wrongdoers determine their own punishment.

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Alvin Lee Is Going Home: ‘Ten Years After’ Guitarist Dies

Guitarist Alvin Lee, whose incendiary performance with the British band Ten Years After was one of the highlights of the 1969 Woodstock festival, has died.

He was 68. Lee’s website says he “passed away early this morning [Wednesday] after unforeseen complications following a routine surgical procedure.” An assistant to his daughter also confirmed the news to NPR.

His band’s biggest hit — “I’d Love to Change the World” — came a couple years after Woodstock. We’ll embed a clip from that.

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Satellite picture displaying the Korean penins...

Satellite picture displaying the Korean peninsula at night. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

SOURCE

Most people in America consider North Korea as an inherently aggressive nation and a threat to global security.

Media disinformation sustains North Korea as a “rogue state”.

The history of the Korean war and its devastating consequences are rarely mentioned. America is portrayed as the victim rather than the aggressor.

North Korea lost thirty percent of its population as a result of US led bombings in the 1950s. 

US military sources confirm that 20 percent of North Korea’s  population was killed off over a three year period of intensive bombings:

“After destroying North Korea’s 78 cities and thousands of her villages, and killing countless numbers of her civilians, [General] LeMay remarked, “Over a period of three years or so we killed off – what – twenty percent of the population.”

It is now believed that the population north of the imposed 38th Parallel lost nearly a third its population of 8 – 9 million people during the 37-month long “hot” war, 1950 – 1953, perhaps an unprecedented percentage of mortality suffered by one nation due to the belligerence of another.” (See War Veteran Brian Willson. Korea and the Axis of Evil, Global Research, April, 2002)

Official South Korean government sources estimate North Korean civilian deaths at 1,550,000


Long lines of refugees fleeing from Yongdong on 26 July 1950. The day before, hundreds of refugees
were massacred by U.S. soldiers and warplanes at bridge at No Gun Ri, eight miles away.

During The Second World War the United Kingdom lost 0.94% of its population, France lost 1.35%, China lost 1.89% and the US lost 0.32%.

During the Korean war, North Korea lost 30 % of its population. In the words of General Curtis Lemay:

There are no innocent civilians. It is their government and you are fighting a people, you are not trying to fight an armed force anymore. So it doesn’t bother me so much to be killing the so-called innocent bystanders. (emphasis added)

Reflect for a few minutes on these figures:  If a foreign power had bombed the US and America had lost thirty percent of its population as result of foreign aggression, Americans across the land would certainly be aware of the threat to their national security emanating from this unnamed foreign power.

Now put yourself in the shoes of the North Koreans, who lost 30 percent of their population as a result of 37 months of relentless US bombings.

From their standpoint, the US is the threat to Global Security.

Their country was destroyed. Town and villages were bombed. General Curtis Lemay acknowledges that “[we] eventually burned down every town in North Korea anyway, someway or another, and some in South Korea too.”

There is not a single family in North Korea which has not lost a loved one.

Everyone I talked with, dozens and dozens of folks, lost one if not many more family members during the war, especially from the continuous bombing, much of it incendiary and napalm, deliberately dropped on virtually every space in the country. “Every means of communication, every installation, factory, city, and village” was ordered bombed by General MacArthur in the fall of 1950. It never stopped until the day of the armistice on July 27, 1953. (See War Veteran Brian Willson. Korea and the Axis of Evil, Global Research, April, 2002)

For the people of North Korea, in their inner consciousness as human beings, the aggressor, which inflicted more than two million deaths on a country of  8-9 million (1950s) is the United States of America.

These facts continue to be concealed by the Western media to sustain the “Axis of Evil” legend, which portrays North Korea as a threat and “rogue state”, to be condemned by the “international community”.

Genocide is defined under the 1948 United Nations Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (CPPCG) as the

“the deliberate and systematic destruction of, in whole or in part, of an ethnic, racial, religious, or national group”. Article 2 of this convention defines genocide as “any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such: killing members of the group; causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group; deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life, calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part; imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group; [and] forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.”

What is at stake is an act of genocide committed by the US. During the Korean War an entire civilian population was the target of deliberate and relentless bombings, with a view to destroying and killing a national group, which constitutes an act of genocide under the UN Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide.

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source

Outflows from the world’s biggest gold exchange traded fund, the SPDR Gold Trust (ticker: GLD), continued yesterday for the eleventh day running, taking the total volume of gold held to back GLD shares to its lowest level since November 2011.
“It is really a tug of war between ETF selling and physical buying right now,” says Yuichi Ikemizu, head of commodity trading, Japan, at Standard Bank.   “We have seen quite good physical demand from China and Southeast Asia, but the ETF selling has put a lid on gold prices.”

SHTF Promo 300 x 250

U.S. DOLLAR prices to buy gold hovered around $1575 per ounce Wednesday morning in London, in line with last week’s close, as dealers in Asia reported an increase in demand for physical bullion, in contrast with exchange traded funds, which have continued to see selling, in what one analyst calls a “tug of war” between physical buying and ETF selling.

“Short-term, gold should drift lower to the short-term support line at $1569/65 or even to the previous low at $1555,” say technical analysts at SocieteGenerale.

“Initial support is at 1564.88,” adds UBS.

“A break below [that level] would expose $1556.50, the June 28 low and then $1533.70, the May 16, 2012 low.”

Gold in Sterling hovered just below £1045 an ounce for most of this morning, slightly down on the week, while gold in Euros stayed below €1210 an ounce.

Silver meantime hovered around $28.70 an ounce, very slightly up on the week, while other commodities were similarly flat. Stock markets extended yesterday’s gains, in contrast with major government bond prices which fell.

“We remain somewhat cautious on gold and silver,” says INTL FCStone analyst Ed Meir.

“They could be hit by a downward reversal if and when markets start to decouple from the surging equity markets.”

Stock markets in Europe extended yesterday’s gains this morning after several major indices closed at multi-year highs Tuesday.

In London, the FTSE 100 posted its highest close since January 2008 yesterday, while over in the US the Dow saw a new all-time record close and the S&P 500 closed at its highest level since October 31 2007, less than 2% off its all-time record close set earlier that month.

Yesterday saw the release of service sector purchasing managers’ index data for a number of economies, which indicated better-than-expected conditions in the US, UK and Eurozone.

“Looking forward,” says a note from Credit Agricole, “[stock market] sentiment could get further support from data this week as the {Federal Reserve’s] Beige Book today will probably show that employment continued to grow ahead of Friday’s jobs report.”

The latest US nonfarm payrolls figure and unemployment rate are due to be published this Friday.The consensus forecast among analysts is for an addition of 160,000 jobs last month, with the unemployment rate expected to stay at 7.9%.

Later today, the privately-produced ADP Employment report is due to be released at 08.15 EST.

Outflows from the world’s biggest gold exchange traded fund, the SPDR Gold Trust (ticker: GLD), continued yesterday for the eleventh day running, taking the total volume of gold held to back GLD shares to its lowest level since November 2011.

“It is really a tug of war between ETF selling and physical buying right now,” says Yuichi Ikemizu, head of commodity trading, Japan, at Standard Bank.

“We have seen quite good physical demand from China and Southeast Asia, but the ETF selling has put a lid on gold prices.”

In China, the most popular forward contract on the Shanghai Gold Exchange continued to trade at a premium of around $20 an ounce compared to the international wholesale gold price Wednesday.

“We are seeing strong and growing support for gold from the physical market,” say Standard Bank commodity strategist Marc Ground, “as evidenced by our Standard Bank Gold Physical Flow Index, which places a floor at around $1560 an ounce.”

“If the buying from China, Indonesia and Thailand continues, it will not be very easy to get physical supply,” one dealer in Singapore told newswire Reuters this morning.

South Korea’s central bank bought 20 tonnes of gold last month, taking its total gold reserve to 104.4 tonnes, 1.5% of overall reserves, it said in a statement.

“As the gold purchase aims to diversify the foreign exchange portfolio over the long haul, gold prices’ short-term volatility have not been considered,” said Lee Jung, head of the Bank of Korea’s investment strategy team.

February also Russia and Kazakhstan continue to buy gold.

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By Philip Pullella

source

VATICAN CITY (Reuters) – Vatican officials on Wednesday told cardinals gathered for the election of the next pope to stop speaking to the media, as further indications emerged that a conclave would not start early next week as had been expected.

American cardinals who had been scheduled to hold their third media briefing in as many days cancelled it less than an hour before it was to have started at Rome’s North American College, where they are residing.

A spokeswoman for the American cardinals said “concern” was expressed at Wednesday’s closed-door meeting “about leaks of confidential proceedings reported in Italian newspapers”.

More than 150 cardinals attended the third day of the preliminary meetings to sketch a profile for the next pope following the shock abdication of Pope Benedict last month. All but two of the 115 “cardinal electors” aged under 80 have arrived for the meetings, the Vatican said.

In their briefings, the American cardinals did not disclose specifics but spoke generally about the proceedings as well as of their hopes and concerns about the state of the Catholic Church at a crucial time in its history.

The preliminary meetings are taking place as the crisis involving sexual abuse of children by priests and inappropriate behaviour among adult clerics continues to haunt the Church and has rarely been out of the headlines.

Asked about the cancellation of the U.S. briefing, Vatican spokesman Father Federico Lombardi said the pre-conclave meetings, known as general congregations, had to take place in a “climate of confidentiality”.

Lombardi said the preparation by the cardinals towards the conclave “is a path in which the college of cardinals reflects in order to reach a decision, in conscience, of each of the members for the election of the Roman Pontiff”.

Cardinals from other countries have also been speaking to the media informally on the streets near the Vatican but the Americans were the only group holding daily formal briefings.

SISTINE CHAPEL

The cancellation of the briefing means the only official source of information would come from a daily briefing by the Vatican spokesman.

The spokeswoman for the Americans said: “As a precaution, the (U.S.) cardinals have agreed not to do interviews.”

Under Church law the cardinals have until March 20 to start a conclave to choose a new pope to lead the 1.2 billion-member Church.

While many observers had expected the conclave to begin as early as this Sunday or Monday, there have been increasing indications that the cardinals want more time to ponder who among them might be best to lead a Church beset by crises.

Several of the prelates leaving the meetings said preliminary proceedings were still at the early stages and more time would be necessary before they could decide on when to start the conclave in the Sistine Chapel.

Workmen have begun preparing the chapel, building a new, suspended floor to protect the centuries-old tiles.

Nonetheless, the Vatican spokesman said it was important that no one felt “pressured” into going into the conclave before they were ready and that more time would be needed for “reflection”.

One cardinal leaving the meeting said there had been no formal discussion on Wednesday of the so-called “Vatileaks” scandal, which led to the arrest of Paolo Gabriele, the pope’s butler, further besmirching the Church’s reputation.

Gabriele was convicted of stealing personal papal documents and leaking them to the media. The documents alleged corruption and infighting over the running of its bank.

A trio of elderly cardinals prepared a report on the scandal for Benedict, who later pardoned Gabriele, and a number of cardinals attending the preliminary meetings said they wanted to be briefed on the report.

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