Thai Guru's Gold und Silber ... (Informationen und Vermutungen)

This is more like it:

Manuel's IMF stance 'worrisome'

Feb 10 2005 05:52:16:463PM

Finance minister Trevor Manuel's support for the IMF's proposal to sell gold reserves is "worrisome", the National Union of Mineworkers say.

Johannesburg - Finance minister Trevor Manuel's support for the International Monetary Fund's (IMF's) proposal to sell gold reserves was "worrisome", the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) said on Thursday.

The union also said it supported mineral and energy minister's, Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka's, opposition to the proposal.

"The concerns raised by the minister are shared by our union," spokesperson Gwede Mantashe said in a statement.

"In our view the action of the IMF, instead of fighting debt, entrenches poverty."

He said gold's value would decrease considerably if the IMF sold its gold reserves.

This would in the end lead to job losses in the gold mining industry and would force thousands of mineworkers into poverty.

"What the IMF is proposing as a solution to a crisis created by the G7 countries themselves, countries that continue consuming world resources unabated, is a recipe for disaster, hunger and disease.

"It would be wise for other alternatives aimed at eradicating debt to be looked at, instead of this one that will push the poor further into the abyss of poverty."

The IMF said last week that it would study the use of its gold reserves to help finance debt relief for some of the world's poorest countries.

The announcement was made during a meeting of the Group of Seven industrialised nations in London.

-END-

What fun to see so many names mentioned in last night’s MIDAS in these reports about the potential IMF gold sales. More on the same issue:

U.S. lawmakers oppose sale of IMF gold stocks

WASHINGTON, Feb 10 (Reuters) - United States lawmakers have told U.S. Treasury Secretary John Snow to oppose proposals for the sale of the International Monetary Fund's gold stockpile to finance debt relief for the world's poor nations.

In a letter to Snow, 12 senators -- from mainly U.S. mining states -- said sales of the IMF's 103 million ounces of gold reserves, the world's third-largest, would hurt gold producers and cause job losses, including in impoverished countries like Peru and Tanzania.

"We believe that careful consideration must be given to any proposal that could have such adverse effects on this important commodity market, and the businesses and communities in the U.S. and around the world that are affected by it," the senators wrote in the letter dated Jan. 31.

The U.S. executive board member to the IMF is barred from voting to sell IMF gold reserves unless the U.S. Congress has approved the move.

-END-

The IMF gold sale proposal is a dead duck. At the same time it was a significant factor in taking gold down the last $20 or so. Mission accomplished by the Gold Cartel. They won another battle but are likely to star backpedaling again towards losing the GOLD WAR.

I would like to thank those Café members who called some gold and silver companies today about GOLDRUSH 21. From the feedback I am getting, it is registering. I hope to hear from MANY more Café members on your results – if nothing else a bunch of names, addresses and phone numbers.

I was talking to one of our biggest supporters today about what an opportunity it is for some of the precious metal CEO’s to meet some of the legends of the industry and pick their brains. What an opportunity, for example, for a silver company CEO to chat with Hugo Salinas Price who is leading a doable fight to remonetize silver in Mexico.

Here you go:

Kitco:
Not Free, Not Fair - An Update on the Gold Cartel - John Embry , Feb 10, 2005

Seabridge Gold ($3.11, up 11 cents ) starts drilling;
http://biz.yahoo.com/bw/050210/105678_1.html

Technically, if Seabridge takes out $3.20 it should fly.

Finally a stellar performance by the gold shares. The XAU rose 3.50 to 93.15. The HUI took out both staunch resistance at 200 and its downtrend line easily, rising to 203.88, up 8.33 (4.26%) and on the highs of the day.

HUI
http://bigcharts.marketwatch.c…&o_symb=hui&freq=1&time=8

The IMF gold sale ruse probably knocked $10 to $20 off the gold price the past 60 days. I don’t believe Brown and the others really honestly thought there was any chance of an IMF gold sale becoming a reality. That was not their game. Brown and the rest of his cabal cronies worked on perception (along with cabal price capping) and it paid off.

Gold must clear $420 with conviction for us to be out of the woods. It should. Demand is bananas.

GATA BE IN IT TO WIN IT!

MIDAS

Appendix

What a steal GATA’s GOLD RUSH 21 is. Regard the other guys and gals:

The 3rd Dubai city of gold conference

In its ongoing endeavour to make the Dubai 's position stronger on the global stage, Dubai Gold & Jewellery Group (DG&JG) is gearing up to once again to welcome industry leaders from around the world to participate in and address the 3rd Dubai "City of Gold " Conference - 2005.

The Group's third conference is scheduled to be held in the Emirates Towers Hotel, Dubai on 21 and 22 February 2005 .

The success of the 2nd Dubai "City of Gold" Conference in 2004, has inspired us to organize the 3rd Dubai "City of Gold" Conference - 2005 on a larger scale with the support of leading organizations and is already attracting eminent speakers to come together on a common platform to promote and discuss the gold and jewellery trade.

Organized with the active support and participation of global industry leaders , including AngloGold, World Gold Council, Diamond Trading Company, Platinum Guild, Credit Suisse, Scotia Mocatta, Commerzbank, National Bank of Dubai, DMCC and Standard Bank, Emirates Airlines, American Express, Fiera Di Vicenza, Transguard, sisma, Omega, IGI, HRD, ABN Amro we expect the 3rd Dubai "City of Gold" Conference to build on previous year's experience and to explore new and exciting areas that effect us all in the trade.

The umbrella theme for the 3rd Dubai "City of Gold " Conference - 2005 is "Marketing" which comprises three elements

The " Dubai Initiative"

The "Dubai Initiative" has already become an active topic of discussion for the gold and jewellery industry worldwide. In fact, our international presence is now firmly recognized with Dubai Gold & Jewellery Group having recently been elected to chair the Marketing Strategy Commission of the World Jewellery Confederation (CIBJO).

This is a project to create resources from all over the world to launch a global campaign and position Jewellery category on top of consumers mind especially the youth
Our Call to modernise the industry with the help of all parties involved in the trade will be further endorsed in the forthcoming Conference as we seek to further establish the "Dubai Initiative".

Announcements will be made in the forthcoming Conference as to how we are seeking to further establish k ey developments in our sector, in the region and with various key industry organizations and government bodies.

Jewellery and Watches

The issue of brands versus unbranded products, in this sector, is an important and specialized issue that will be addressed at the conference, and how both products have targeted audiences that will grow each segment. Marketing insights and analysis shared at the conference will lend specific focus on what are the trends for the coming year's purchases.

Tourism and Jewellery

Tourism in Dubai is a rapidly developing phenomenon with estimated targets of 12 million tourists coming to Dubai by 2014. With approximately 90% of the current five million tourists who come to Dubai every year visiting a gold and jewellery outlet this part of the conference will discuss strategies to target your specific tourist categories to more effectively increase sales and to benefit from this population influx that will affect Dubai as a whole.

Tourism and promoting Dubai "City of Gold " will go hand in hand over the coming years and will play a significant role in developing Dubai as an internationally recognized Gold and Jewellery destination.

We all have a part to play in these developments and we are confident this will shed light on the pressing issues everyone involved in the group should be aware of.

Strategies to see how the Jewellery industry can benefit from the largest industry of the world - Tourism
South African Jewellery Manufacturers' Mission
22 - 23 February 2005
Sponsorship details
Sponsorship packages

Key Sponsor - $US 50,000
· Senior Delegate e.g. Chairman/CEO/MD to have opportunity to be keynote speaker at conference
· Company/organisation branding and prominent use of logo in all publicity materials giving high visibility
· Opportunity to host a small side event for 15-25 participants including provision of meeting room and light refreshments
· Prominent use of logo on all banners and other branding at the venue
· Opportunity to place up to three pop-up branding stands at venue
· Conference organizers will seek interview opportunities with local, regional and international media for senior delegates
· Sponsor mention in all press releases concerning the conference
· Press release announcing conference sponsors to include quote from key sponsor representative
· Invitation for five representatives from key sponsor to be guests at the pre-conference networking cocktail reception
· Invitation for 10 key sponsor representatives to attend the event
· Branding using logo inside the conference venue
· Database of conference delegates and participants will be provided
· A full page advertisement in the conference brochure - key sponsor to provide artwork
· A consolidated media coverage document of the event

Co-Sponsor - $US 25,000

· Company/organisation branding and use of logo in all publicity materials
· Prominent use of logo on all banners and other branding at the venue
· Reference in all press releases promoting the conference
· Invitation for three company/organisation representative to participate in the pre-event networking cocktail reception
· Invitation for 5 company/organisation representatives to attend the event
· Branding using logo inside the conference venue
· Database of conference delegates and participants will be provided
· A consolidated media coverage document of the event

Support Sponsor - $US 10,000
· Logo Mileage in all collaterals
· Mention in all press releases
· Invitation for 2 delegates to the networking cocktail reception
· Invitation for 4 company/organisation representatives to attend the event.
· A consolidated media coverage document of the event
Last date for sponsorship requests: 30 November 2004

-END-

For more than a year now I have been commenting that the dollar has to decline in the face of rising interest rates for the gold price (in US dollars) to sustain a meaningful rally. Every time I make that comment, someone points out that rising interest rates typically result in stronger currencies. Therefore, why would the dollar fall if interest rates are rising?

History repeats, but never exactly. While there are often precedents for current situations the circumstances are rarely identical, so we have to be careful when we make assumptions based on past experiences or events.

It is true that higher interest rates typically lead to stronger currencies, but the US balance sheet, income statement and dollar are in uncharted waters and never has globalization been as prevalent as it is now. Japan owns roughly seven hundred billion dollars worth of US Treasury securities and China has in the order of two hundred billion dollars.

Were it not for Japan and China, the US dollar would be trading a lot lower than where it is today. During the past decade the United States has racked up enormous trade deficits with those two countries. Under normal circumstances the net amount of dollars (trade deficit) paid to foreign corporations would be sold on foreign exchange markets. As the trade deficit widens, ever more dollars are sold, putting pressure on the dollar to decline. Eventually the weakening dollar would cause the prices of imported goods to rise and the rising costs of imports would ameliorate the trade deficit. This is the free market's natural balancing system.

But Japan and China wanted to prevent their currencies from appreciating against the dollar. Put another way, they wanted to prevent the dollar from falling in response to the rising trade deficit. So instead of selling the excess dollars into the foreign exchange markets they used them to buy US Treasuries. This kept the dollars out of the foreign exchange markets and helped the US finance its budget deficits.

It was a win-win situation -- or so it seemed. The US could spend, and spend, and spend... and Japan and China would send their savings over to finance the binge. Now, however, the situation has gotten so out of hand that there is mounting pressure on China to let its currency, the renminbi, float against the dollar.

Calling for a stronger renminbi is in essence the same as calling for a weaker dollar. Now let's go back to the mechanism that kept the renminbi, and the Japanese yen, from rising against the dollar: excess dollars were invested in US Treasuries instead of being sold into the foreign exchange markets.

If the Japanese and Chinese are to let their currencies appreciate against the dollar it also means that they will start selling more dollars into the foreign exchange markets and that means they will have less dollars to invest in US Treasuries.

This is not trivial matter. Between January and November last year, Japan and China bought about thirty percent of all the new Treasury securities the United States issued. Even a small decline in the amount of US Treasury purchases by Japan and China could have a dramatic effect on US interest rates.

If the demand for US Treasury securities (bonds) declines then bond prices are likely to decline as well. US interest rates are determined by US bond prices: if bond prices fall, interest rates rise. Therefore a decline in demand for US Treasuries from Japan and China means an increase in interest rates for the US.

Now let's go back to the free market mechanism again. If Japan and China allow their currencies to appreciate against the dollar it also means that they will sell more of the dollars that are accumulating from the US trade deficit into the foreign exchange markets. This additional dollar-supply will result in the renminbi and yen strengthening, and the dollar weakening. It is precisely what the US and Europe are asking China to do.

So a revaluation of the renminbi will cause more dollars to be sold (downward pressure on the US dollar exchange rate) and less US Treasury securities to be purchased (downward pressure on bond prices and upward pressure on interest rates). Also, if China lets its currency appreciate then I doubt that Japan will continue to try and support the dollar by itself. So the same goes for Japan.

Now, we can argue for days and weeks about how severe the dollar decline will be, how high interest rates will go, what impact that will have on the US economy and, by extension on the global economy. The bottom line is that China will most likely allow its currency to rise this year; Japan will follow suit. That is the same as saying the dollar will continue to decline only this time against the Asian currencies as opposed to the euro and other Western currencies. And, as you saw, the decline in the dollar will occur simultaneously with rising US interest rates.

As a result the gold price, in US dollars, will continue to rise, punctuated perhaps by talk of IMF gold sales and other miscellaneous events.

This rise in the gold price, as has been the case for the past three years, is mostly a dollar phenomenon. It's a bear market in the dollar, not a bull market in gold.

Paul van Eeden

February 11 – Gold $420.40 up $3.50 – Silver $7.14 up 23 cents

Back From The Dead / Silver Leads Gold To Smart Gains Again

"I suppose, indeed, that in public life, a man whose political principles have any decided character and who has energy enough to give them effect must always expect to encounter political hostility from those of adverse principles." --Thomas Jefferson

It’s fun to watch the screen again and put some smiles on my face rather than wrinkles. There are a good deal of positive developments to report.

To have gold and silver follow through on yesterday’s hearty move up is extremely encouraging, especially when taken into context of what we know about the silver and gold fundamentals. For starters silver easily took out key resistance at $7 and gold managed to eke out a close above its key resistance of $420. It did so even though The Gold Cartel and allies floated another silly and baseless rumor…this time with gold up nearly $5 and flying. Here it is from thestreetaccount.com:

Market update: Indices rally on Kim Jong Il speculation
The recent rally in the broader market is being attributed to unconfirmed speculation that North Korean leader Kim Jung Il is 'out.' We have noconfirmation on the speculation, but it is moving the equity markets rumor.
* * * * *

12:16 Kim Jung Il speculation
Following the Kim Jong Il speculation, we note that today's edition of The Gartman Letter finds it notable that the news of North Korea's nuclear weapons program was disseminated by the North Korean news agency, and not through Kim Jung Il. The publication acknowledges the speculation of Kim's removal from office, which could be providing fuel for the rumors. Meanwhile, CNBC has acknowledged the rumor, with correspondent Bob Pisani saying that he has contacted various intelligence officials who were not aware of the rumor.
* * * * *

***

Following this widely circulated rumor, the euro, which had reversed its downward course and was on the move, rallying to 129, was blasted and it dropped .45, taking gold and silver down with it. Gold dropped nearly $3 and the steam was taken out if its surge.

Veteran Café members are familiar with the number of times I have brought these planted rumors to your attention over recent years. COINDICENTALLY, they always surface when gold is on the move. ALWAYS, and they are ALWAYS proven false. However, by the time they are countered and the truth surfaces, the damage to gold has been done for the day. These same rumors have also ALWAYS been supportive to the US stock market (it soared at one point today on the rumor). This is an outrage and just one more example how farcical our financial markets have become and how the Orwellians are going to greater and greater lengths to spin their propaganda. In the end the average American investor will be slaughtered when it all falls apart and will be clueless to how such an economic and financial market debacle in the US could devastate their net worth. They will be clueless. YOU won’t be.

John Brimelow and I have been pounding the table about how firm the gold fundamentals have been. While The Gold Cartel would like them to be meaningless, they do count, and as time goes by they will count the most. The price action of silver and gold the past two days has begun to reflect those true fundamentals.

Then we have the euro gold price on the move. It closed at 326.80, not far from its recent high of 327 and a bit of change. Gold led the euro move down and is now, hopefully, leading the euro move up. Regardless of whether that occurs, what we should see is gold rising in all currencies, not just in terms of the dollar. This is one of my long-felt babies. Gold rocketed in 1993 with the dollar remaining strong. No reason it cannot do so once more, especially with demand so stout around the world. Perhaps we are in the earliest stages of this new development, which will confound most of the gold pundits.

Why could this be occurring now? BECAUSE it just may be, and a prediction held by MIDAS also, The Gold Cartel is slowly hitting the wall as far as finding available physical gold supply to keep the price from taking off. It just may be this is what this IMF gold flap is all about. The British, who also may be short, and others are scrambling to find supply. It is too early for any definitive judgment on this, but the Gold Cartel hitting the wall WILL commence somehow, some way. Perhaps that time is coming into play right now. One thing for sure, when this coming development kicks in, few out there in gold pundit land (who failed to appreciate what GATA knows) will have any idea what is happening and why.

Silver continued its rally during the Asian trading hours last evening. When I "cacked" out for the evening, silver was up another 7 cents, which is unusual to begin with, especially after a 38 cent move up the previous trading session. It followed through today on the Comex in the most powerful of trading ways, closing right off its highs, and has left its moving averages in the dust (200-day at $6.64).

The action in silver is nothing short of spectacular. The back-to-back two-day move has to be as good, or better, than any since MIDAS began covering gold and silver in the fall of 1998. Where the recent move up stands out the most is its relative price action versus gold and thus to the dollar too. This will become apparent when reading previous MIDAS commentary below.

Two mysteries (at least to me) to deal with today. The first is the goofy story from our STALKER’s silver source in London in which he said they were about to teach the Comex folks a lesson and drop the price 50 cents to a dollar. That story contradicted EVERYTHING sent our way over the past couple of months by the same source. To digress:

With silver at $6.79 on December 30th and gold at $437.10:

Some silver goodies to end the year. Spoke to our STALKER contact who heard from his London bullion dealer silver source. This veteran in England said the following:

*He (and others) have two Saudi Arabian orders for silver totaling $10 million and are having "unaccustomed difficulty" in filling the orders.

*He is disgusted that silver closed below $7 for the year and blames it on the Fed/US Government. Mind you this is someone who never speaks about GATA, nor do we know if he has ever spoken like this in the past. The hands of The Gold Cartel and friends have become this obvious!

*Blames the low silver price on the New York silver paper traders. If they disappeared, silver would be $20 per ounce.

*Says these traders are clueless about what is really going on in silver. That there is no way they can cover their short positions. That they are in deep trouble, which will all become known when silver explodes, as it must.

*These traders are on their own Titanic heading for an iceberg. Meanwhile, they party on.

*Mexico will remonetize silver as it is in their significant interest to do so.

I queried my STALKER source why the London silver people don’t take delivery of futures contracts here and ship the silver over. He said he would get back to me.

The Comex silver stocks are bobbing around these days. Silver’s future looks EXTREMELY bright as we sail into 2005. Gold should skyrocket next year too as it breaks loose from the shackles of The Gold Cartel. At some point, bullion will move sharply higher (well above $500) and do so independently of the dollar action….

-END-

On January 6 with silver all the way down to $6.41 and gold tanking to $420.50:

Heard from our STALKER silver source this morning on why dealers are not taking delivery of available silver in the US and shipping it to Europe:

*They buy FOB here and sell CIF over there. The costs in doing so are extremely high.

*The Saudis want a particular kind of hallmarked silver which they can’t be sure of receiving from the Comex stocks.

Our source still says the paper traders in the US and the market here are very different from what he is dealing with in Europe. There is the real silver world over there and our paper game world here. Unfortunately, the Comex crowd has ruled for a very long time and continues to do so. One day that will end very abruptly and the price will move up very quickly without correcting. If our Chinese news is correct, silver ought to blow through $8 by the end of February and shoot for $10 by mid-year…

-END-

With silver back to $6.70 and gold up modestly to $425.50:

Spoke with our STALKER source today who relays the following:

*The Chinese are buying up everything: coal, silver, oil, copper, gold etc. As we all know they are loaded up with dollars. Rather than dumping them, they are going around the world and buying materials and stacking up inventories.

-END-

Then this past Tuesday the abrupt about face. Since then silver has soared 63 cents. My STALKER source and I are waiting for an explanation from London.

The silver open interest only rose 1797 contracts on its huge move. A VERY good sign. There is room for all kinds of specs to pile in here and take on the shorts. Morgan Stanley, the featured long, took some profits (1,000 contracts) when silver took out $7.20, however, he is still very long.

The gold open interest jumped 5270 contracts. This makes sense as it had contracted so much over the past two months. New specs piled in. However, in observance of the $6 rule The Gold Cartel bullion banks, as reported, were significant sellers, hence, the decent increase in OI. One thing I forgot to mention yesterday was that GLD was also a featured seller. Hmmm.

The COT report showed the Commercials going more long by 7,604 contracts and reducing shorts by 11,786 contracts, as of last Tuesday. Since then, they have resumed building shorts again.

For those who think the Commercials in gold and silver always win, that is NOT always so. The silver Commercials are long 19,194 contracts and short 66,421 contracts. They got whacked the past two trading sessions. It is only a matter of time before we get a Commercial Signal Failure in silver, then in gold, in which they are annihilated.

The John Brimelow Report

Good physical data; Stress time for Bears

Friday, February 11, 2005

Indian ex-duty premiums: AM $7.04, PM $6.75, with world gold at $418.20 and $417.15. Adequate for legal imports. With all the Far Eastern Chinese-language markets closed today (and Japan) India’s influence was clear: gold rose over $1 from the NY close before Europe opened. However the Reserve Bank of India rather spoiled the party from the point of view of gold’s friends, intervening to send the rupee down to a one month low.

Refco has produced a useful chart of the gross (e.g. with duty) Indian premium above the PM fix; it is the second attachment. Bearing in mind world gold’s steady rise May-November last year to 16 year highs the equally steady increase in the Indian premium over the same time is remarkable.

Mitsui has published their survey of Precious Metal refineries conducted at the end of January

…………………………………........................Current Month…................Previous Month

Volume compared to last month…………………............6.1………………….5.1

Products level of demand (compared to last month)……6.9………………….5.7 (in gold bars)

1=weak and 10 equals strong

"An extremely strong month as price fell sharply to the low $420s. Notable were gold bars [3rd best out of 19 Monitors] and demand in India [4th best …]. Turkish, ME and Japanese demand rose. Asia demand was at a record. Solid, broad based demand combined with a lack of raw material supply (could scrap sources have been exhausted at the recent price highs?) to produce a shortage of bars and increased premiums."

Clearly, without this extraordinary demand, the sellers would have been able to force gold much lower.

Yesterday, the loud cheering of the unimportantly-better than expected Trade deficit failed to influence the markets with commodities rallying - some entirely erasing 2005’s losses - and the dollar faltering. The highly-sensitive Gartman Letter is concerned:

"We shall mince no words here; we were surprised by the dollar's response to this figure for this was modestly dollar bullish news and we would have reasonably expected the dollar to rally on that news. It did not, and that we find disconcerting."

One construes this to mean that TGL’s Hedge fund friends find this disconcerting too. Although, as UBS very reasonably says

"Yesterday in New York gold finally broke out of its recent deadlock, although the move higher probably went against most traders as the market felt short for most of the session."

open interest actually jumped 5,270 contacts to 258,868 lots - a 16.39 tonne increase – on heavy volume of 74,190 contracts. This seems rather steep considering there must have been at least some short covering. It looks as if any rise in gold is going to be fiercely contested.

So it is well to remember that the tremendous physical demand data furnished by Mitsui pertain to January, during which world gold was consistently above $420.

JB

CARTEL CAPITULATION WATCH

The DOW, aided by the dopey rumor, finished at 10,796, up 46, while the DOG recovered, climbing up 24 to 2076.

US economic news:

Foreign cenbanks sell T-notes for third week -Fed
Thu Feb 10, 2005 04:29 PM ET NEW YORK, Feb 10 (Reuters) - Foreign central banks were net sellers of U.S. Treasuries for the third week in a row in the latest week, Federal Reserve data showed on Thursday.

The amounts sold so far have been minor compared with their massive holdings, but could still heighten recent concerns that foreign central banks were losing their appetite for buying ever more U.S. debt.

The Fed said its overall holdings of Treasury and agency debt kept for overseas central banks fell by $4.98 billion in the week ending Feb. 9, to stand at $1.339 trillion.

-END-

Oil news which should not be ignored. Not good news for oil bears looking for oil to take out $40 on the downside:

LONDON, Feb 11 (Reuters) - OPEC oil producers may need to cut supply for the second quarter even if consumption stays robust and would need a faster, bigger cut if they see a sharp fall in demand, the group's acting Secretary-General said on Friday.

"If robust demand holds then maybe we need a small cut in second quarter. If there is a significant fall in demand then maybe we need a larger cut, and earlier," OPEC's acting Secretary-General Adnan Shihab-Eldin told Reuters in an interview.

"If we are pleasantly surprised on demand then perhaps we can reconsider," he said.

-END-

The real North Korean story:

U.S. Rejects North Korea Demand for Bilateral Talks

By Jon Herskovitz and Steve Holland

SEOUL/WASHINGTON (Reuters) - North Korea demanded bilateral talks with the United States over its nuclear weapons program but Washington quickly rejected the idea on Friday and insisted Pyongyang return to six-party negotiations.

"There's plenty of opportunities for North Korea to speak directly with us in the context of the six-party talks," said White House spokesman Scott McClellan.

North Korea said on Thursday it had acquired nuclear weapons to boost its defenses in the face of U.S. hostility and the policy of the White House to seek "regime change," and said it would not return to the multilateral talks.

-END-

The real scoop on GATA nemesis Dennis Gartman:

Hi, Bill,
Just happened to hear Pisani on CNBC (12:00 EST) reporting that the source of today's rumours that rallied the markets early was your good buddy, Dennis Gartman. Any question left that he is a cartel mouthpiece?
Terry

Another development which should also not be ignored:

FOREIGNERS BARRED FROM BIDDING FOR RUSSIA'S BEST OILFIELDS

MOSCOW, February 11. (RIA Novosti)-The Russian Natural Resources Ministry's liberal policy is not really that liberal. Natural Resources Minister Yury Trutnev announced on Thursday that neither foreign companies nor Russian businesses controlled from offshore areas would be admitted to auctions for Russia's best oil and gas fields. Izvestia and Kommersant take up this matter.

What is behind this move? The fields are strategically important, so only companies with no less than 51% of Russian capital will be allowed to bid. The fields in question are Sakhalin-3 (over 600 million tons of crude) and several sites in the Barents Sea (more than 977 million tons) and the Yamal-Nenets Autonomous Area and the Timan-Pechora oil basin (aggregate resources of at least 250 million tons).

In all, more than 250 licenses are on the 2005 sales list, and the "Russians-only" short list includes the Udokanskoye copper deposit and the Sukhoi Log gold field. The latter's reserves are estimated at over 1,000 tons of gold, which puts the minimum starting price at $150 million.

The Natural Resources Ministry has put many major companies on a black list. One is Sibneft, whose controlling stake belongs to six Cyprus-based offshore companies managed by Millhouse Capital. Another is TNK-BP, a 50/50 joint venture between Russia's Alfa Group and Access/Renova and Britain's BP. The ministry acknowledges that Surgutneftegaz and Norilsk Nickel might also be in a difficult situation.

Given the ministry's latest moves, such international players as Shell, Total, CNPC, Chevron, and ExxonMobil have few prospects for expanding their business in Russia. The only hope for them is to set up Russian subsidiaries, which is not something every company can afford.

Non-Russian companies were shocked by Mr. Trutnev's statement. Shell Russia press secretary Maksim Shub said he did not understand what was going on. Other companies refused to comment.

-END-

GATA, bonds and the authorities:

Bill --- Nobody in GATA seems to have zeroed in on this so thought I might call it to your attention.
Citibank recently purchased 12 billion in bonds in 12 seconds in Europe. Sometime later the same day they repurchased 4 billion of same, apparently making a huge, quick profit. Doesn't this action resemble the actions of the Gold Cartel in the gold market?
The difference is that the Bundesbank and the ECB are going after Citibank tooth & nail, whereas no one is going after the Gold Cartel in this country. Do you think it possible that the European action could be held up as an example of what should be done---and is not being done---by U.S. authorities?
Bob Fair

Yes Bob, which is one reason GATA is hosting GOLD RUSH 21. Acceptances continue to trickle in even though most of our invitations are still going out. I cannot stress enough how important it is for every Café member to contact your gold company CEOs about attending. It works. The more shareholders who do so, the greater the impact. The feedback thus far from those of you who have made the effort is very positive. There will come a time in the months ahead when it will be too late. We will be sold out!