COMMODITIES-Gold hits new record, Brent oil above $122
* Gold hits record on inflation concern, Europe debt concern
* Silver hits 31-year high
* Strong commodity prices fuel inflation
* Corn dips but more gains seen, US supplies tightest since
1930s
* Brent above $122; Middle East, N.Africa turmoil supports
By Simon Webb
af.reuters.com
SINGAPORE, April 6 (Reuters) - Gold hit a record high on
Wednesday while oil and corn were just off peaks struck this
week as commodity prices fuel rising inflation that governments
worldwide are struggling to contain.
Spot gold rose to a record $1,458.50 an ounce as
investors bought the precious metal to hedge against inflation
and as a save haven as sovereign debt problems flared again in
Europe after Portugal's credit rating was downgraded.
Euro zone debt woes and continued unrest in the Middle East
and North Africa (MENA) have added to gold's attraction for
investors.
"You tend to get movements like this into gold and silver on
the type of risks we're seeing in the MENA region, and now the
flare up in Europe's sovereign debt issues," said Joel Crane, an
analyst at Morgan Stanley in Melbourne. "It's investors doing
what investors do."
Spot silver hit a 31-year high at $39.48 an ounce on
Wednesday, supported by gold's rally.
Economic growth in Asia and upheaval in North Africa and the
Middle East are stoking commodity prices, driving up the cost of
raw materials and energy to business and consumers. Inflation is
a threat to the growth of Asia's emerging economies, the Asian
Development Bank said in a report on Wednesday. [ID:nL3E7F519W]
"High and volatile oil and food prices will, in particular,
reverberate through the world economy, and they are likely to
stay that way in 2011-2012," the ADB said. "They will thus be a
significant source of global inflation, especially in developing
countries where recovery is firmly under way."
The ADB's comments contrasted with the dovish tone of U.S.
Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke, who said this week that
U.S. inflation was being driven by rising commodity prices
globally, and was unlikely to last long. [ID:nN04294041]
Benchmark U.S. corn futures Cc1 slipped 0.59 percent to
$7.62-1/4 a bushel at 0800 GMT. The contract hit an all-time
peak of $7.70-3/4 on Tuesday, after rallying 15 percent in four
days on a U.S. government report showing unexpectedly low
inventories.
Supplies in the U.S. are at their tightest since the 1930s,
and many in the market see more gains ahead unless livestock
farmers or ethanol makers cut back on purchases. With
inventories so thin, any sign of inclement weather impacting
crops or buying from China could trigger further rises.
"The top pick for us and a position we've had in our
portfolio for a long time is corn," said Colin O'Shea, head of
commodities at Hermes, which has $35 billion under management,
and around $2 billion in commodities and energy, speaking on the
sidelines of a conference in Singapore. [ID:nL3E7F612U]
Rising consumption in China brought it into the corn market
last year for the first time in four years, contributing to
corn's rise. The U.S. Grains Council said on Tuesday China could
import an additional 2 million to 3 million tonnes by September.
[ID:nN05129097]
Corn, like most other commodity markets, quickly shrugged
off China's interest rate hike on Tuesday, despite the threat
that tightening monetary policy could slow imports by the
world's biggest consumer of raw materials.
China has raised rates four times since October as it
battles to contain inflation and prevent its fast-growing
economy from overheating.
LME aluminium hit its highest since September on
Wednesday at $2,663 a tonne, helped by a weaker dollar versus
the euro.
OIL
Unrest in the world's top oil exporting region has roiled
oil markets this year and outweighed any concern of a slowdown
in the world's second largest oil consumer China.
Brent crude LCOc1 fell 9 cents to $122.13, after breaking
above $120 on Monday. The contract is within a dollar of
Tuesday's $122.89 peak --the highest since August 2008.
U.S. crude rose 14 cents to $108.48 a barrel, just 30 cents
below its highest since September 2008 of $108.78 hit on Monday.
Top oil exporter Saudi Arabia has stepped in to plug the
supply gap left by Libya, after civil war there interrupted
exports. The kingdom is the only producer with significant spare
capacity to compensate for unexpected supply losses.
The worst-case scenario for oil markets would be if unrest
constrained Saudi Arabia's output and spare capacity --
threatening not only the 10 percent of global oil supply the
kingdom provides, but also leaving producers with insufficient
spare capacity to meet any supply outage.
Oil prices could rocket to $200 per barrel to $300 per
barrel if Saudi Arabia is hit by serious political unrest,
former Saudi oil minister Sheikh Zaki Yamani told Reuters on
Tuesday. [ID:nLDE7340MU]
The 19-commodity Reuters-Jefferies CRB index , a
global benchmark for the asset class, rose 0.26 percent on
Tuesday, and is less than a percent off a 2.5-year high hit last
month.
(Editing by Clarence Fernandez)
Wednesday, April 06, 2011
Dare Not Question - for the Government Hath Never Lied and Never Shall!
Dare not question the official story or we shall call thee names!
Truther! You dare question the official story of 9/11?
Birther! You dare question the birth place of our exalted leader?
Tea Bagger! You dare question the constitutionality of laws and the growth of government?
Denier! You dare to question man made global warming?
_________ ! You dare to ask what airplanes are spraying in our skies?
_________! You dare to question the wisdom of the U.S. starting another war?
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
The first four were pretty easy but what are the names of the last two?
If there aren't any please feel free to make some up.
Truther! You dare question the official story of 9/11?
Birther! You dare question the birth place of our exalted leader?
Tea Bagger! You dare question the constitutionality of laws and the growth of government?
Denier! You dare to question man made global warming?
_________ ! You dare to ask what airplanes are spraying in our skies?
_________! You dare to question the wisdom of the U.S. starting another war?
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
The first four were pretty easy but what are the names of the last two?
If there aren't any please feel free to make some up.
President Obama’s top 5 broken campaign promises
By Stephen C. Webster
Tuesday, April 5th, 2011 -- 1:09 pm
rawstory.com
President Barack Obama came to office on a tide of voters eager to see a change in more than just the White House's occupant. Two years into his presidency -- and one day after he launched his 2012 reelection campaign -- and even some of his most ardent supporters are having trouble coming to terms with the answer to Sarah Palin's 2010 question: "How's that hopey, changey stuff working out?"
Polls show that less than half the country believes President Obama deserves reelection, with disaffected liberals now a fast growing demographic.
Even though Obama clearly leads all of the likely Republican front-runners at this point, the deep dissatisfaction brewing within his core constituency could make the president, and his whole party, uniquely vulnerable in next year's elections.
Below are five of the biggest campaign pledges Obama failed to keep -- for which he'll likely have to answer before election day 2012.
1. Health care for all
2. Close Guantanamo
3. Defend labor rights
4. Reform the Patriot Act
5. End the wars
Even though the president promised his Afghan occupation would conclude in July 2011, military officials have admitted that sometime in 2014 is more likely. Elsewhere, American forces are dropping more bombs on more countries today than at any point during the Bush administration, with continued occupation forces in two massive countries even as they stage aerial bombardments of Pakistan, Libya and Yemen.
Tuesday, April 5th, 2011 -- 1:09 pm
rawstory.com
President Barack Obama came to office on a tide of voters eager to see a change in more than just the White House's occupant. Two years into his presidency -- and one day after he launched his 2012 reelection campaign -- and even some of his most ardent supporters are having trouble coming to terms with the answer to Sarah Palin's 2010 question: "How's that hopey, changey stuff working out?"
Polls show that less than half the country believes President Obama deserves reelection, with disaffected liberals now a fast growing demographic.
Even though Obama clearly leads all of the likely Republican front-runners at this point, the deep dissatisfaction brewing within his core constituency could make the president, and his whole party, uniquely vulnerable in next year's elections.
Below are five of the biggest campaign pledges Obama failed to keep -- for which he'll likely have to answer before election day 2012.
1. Health care for all
2. Close Guantanamo
3. Defend labor rights
4. Reform the Patriot Act
5. End the wars
Even though the president promised his Afghan occupation would conclude in July 2011, military officials have admitted that sometime in 2014 is more likely. Elsewhere, American forces are dropping more bombs on more countries today than at any point during the Bush administration, with continued occupation forces in two massive countries even as they stage aerial bombardments of Pakistan, Libya and Yemen.
Monday, April 04, 2011
Saturday, April 02, 2011
Exposed: The US-Saudi Libya deal
THE ROVING EYE
Exposed: The US-Saudi Libya deal
By Pepe Escobar
Asia Times
You invade Bahrain. We take out Muammar Gaddafi in Libya. This, in short, is the essence of a deal struck between the Barack Obama administration and the House of Saud. Two diplomatic sources at the United Nations independently confirmed that Washington, via Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, gave the go-ahead for Saudi Arabia to invade Bahrain and crush the pro-democracy movement in their neighbor in exchange for a "yes" vote by the Arab League for a no-fly zone over Libya - the main rationale that led to United Nations Security Council resolution 1973.
The revelation came from two different diplomats, a European and a member of the BRIC group, and was made separately to a US scholar and Asia Times Online. According to diplomatic protocol, their names cannot be disclosed. One of the diplomats said, "This is the reason why we could not support resolution 1973. We were arguing that Libya, Bahrain and Yemen were similar cases, and calling for a fact-finding mission. We maintain our official position that the resolution is not clear, and may be interpreted in a belligerent manner."
As Asia Times Online has reported, a full Arab League endorsement of a no-fly zone is a myth. Of the 22 full members, only 11 were present at the voting. Six of them were Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) members, the US-supported club of Gulf kingdoms/sheikhdoms, of which Saudi Arabia is the top dog. Syria and Algeria were against it. Saudi Arabia only had to "seduce" three other members to get the vote.
Translation: only nine out of 22 members of the Arab League voted for the no-fly zone. The vote was essentially a House of Saud-led operation, with Arab League secretary general Amr Moussa keen to polish his CV with Washington with an eye to become the next Egyptian President.
Thus, in the beginning, there was the great 2011 Arab revolt. Then, inexorably, came the US-Saudi counter-revolution.
Profiteers rejoice
Humanitarian imperialists will spin en masse this is a "conspiracy", as they have been spinning the bombing of Libya prevented a hypothetical massacre in Benghazi. They will be defending the House of Saud - saying it acted to squash Iranian subversion in the Gulf; obviously R2P - "responsibility to protect" does not apply to people in Bahrain. They will be heavily promoting post-Gaddafi Libya as a new - oily - human rights Mecca, complete with US intelligence assets, black ops, special forces and dodgy contractors.
Whatever they say won't alter the facts on the ground - the graphic results of the US-Saudi dirty dancing. Asia Times Online has already reported on who profits from the foreign intervention in Libya (see There's no business like war business, March 30). Players include the Pentagon (via Africom), the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), Saudi Arabia, the Arab League's Moussa, and Qatar. Add to the list the al-Khalifa dynasty in Bahrain, assorted weapons contractors, and the usual neo-liberal suspects eager to privatize everything in sight in the new Libya - even the water. And we're not even talking about the Western vultures hovering over the Libyan oil and gas industry.
Exposed, above all, is the astonishing hypocrisy of the Obama administration, selling a crass geopolitical coup involving northern Africa and the Persian Gulf as a humanitarian operation. As for the fact of another US war on a Muslim nation, that's just a "kinetic military action".
There's been wide speculation in both the US and across the Middle East that considering the military stalemate - and short of the "coalition of the willing" bombing the Gaddafi family to oblivion - Washington, London and Paris might settle for the control of eastern Libya; a northern African version of an oil-rich Gulf Emirate. Gaddafi would be left with a starving North Korea-style Tripolitania.
But considering the latest high-value defections from the regime, plus the desired endgame ("Gaddafi must go", in President Obama's own words), Washington, London, Paris and Riyadh won't settle for nothing but the whole kebab. Including a strategic base for both Africom and NATO.
Round up the unusual suspects
One of the side effects of the dirty US-Saudi deal is that the White House is doing all it can to make sure the Bahrain drama is buried by US media. BBC America news anchor Katty Kay at least had the decency to stress, "they would like that one [Bahrain] to go away because there's no real upside for them in supporting the rebellion by the Shi'ites."
For his part the emir of Qatar, Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa al Thani, showed up on al-Jazeera and said that action was needed because the Libyan people were attacked by Gaddafi. The otherwise excellent al-Jazeera journalists could have politely asked the emir whether he would send his Mirages to protect the people of Palestine from Israel, or his neighbors in Bahrain from Saudi Arabia.
The al-Khalifa dynasty in Bahrain is essentially a bunch of Sunni settlers who took over 230 years ago. For a great deal of the 20th century they were obliging slaves of the British empire. Modern Bahrain does not live under the specter of a push from Iran; that's an al-Khalifa (and House of Saud) myth.
Bahrainis, historically, have always rejected being part of a sort of Shi'ite nation led by Iran. The protests come a long way, and are part of a true national movement - way beyond sectarianism. No wonder the slogan in the iconic Pearl roundabout - smashed by the fearful al-Khalifa police state - was "neither Sunni nor Shi'ite; Bahraini".
What the protesters wanted was essentially a constitutional monarchy; a legitimate parliament; free and fair elections; and no more corruption. What they got instead was "bullet-friendly Bahrain" replacing "business-friendly Bahrain", and an invasion sponsored by the House of Saud.
And the repression goes on - invisible to US corporate media. Tweeters scream that everybody and his neighbor are being arrested. According to Nabeel Rajab, president of the Bahrain Center for Human Rights, over 400 people are either missing or in custody, some of them "arrested at checkpoints controlled by thugs brought in from other Arab and Asian countries - they wear black masks in the streets." Even blogger Mahmood Al Yousif was arrested at 3 am, leading to fears that the same will happen to any Bahraini who has blogged, tweeted, or posted Facebook messages in favor of reform.
Globocop is on a roll
Odyssey Dawn is now over. Enter Unified Protector - led by Canadian Charles Bouchard. Translation: the Pentagon (as in Africom) transfers the "kinetic military action " to itself (as in NATO, which is nothing but the Pentagon ruling over Europe). Africom and NATO are now one.
The NATO show will include air and cruise missile strikes; a naval blockade of Libyia; and shady, unspecified ground operations to help the "rebels". Hardcore helicopter gunship raids a la AfPak - with attached "collateral damage" - should be expected.
A curious development is already visible. NATO is deliberately allowing Gaddafi forces to advance along the Mediterranean coast and repel the "rebels". There have been no surgical air strikes for quite a while.
The objective is possibly to extract political and economic concessions from the defector and Libyan exile-infested Interim National Council (INC) - a dodgy cast of characters including former Justice minister Mustafa Abdel Jalil, US-educated former secretary of planning Mahmoud Jibril, and former Virginia resident, new "military commander" and CIA asset Khalifa Hifter. The laudable, indigenous February 17 Youth movement - which was in the forefront of the Benghazi uprising - has been completely sidelined.
This is NATO's first African war, as Afghanistan is NATO's first Central/South Asian war. Now firmly configured as the UN's weaponized arm, Globocop NATO is on a roll implementing its "strategic concept" approved at the Lisbon summit last November (see Welcome to NATOstan, Asia Times Online, November 20, 2010).
Gaddafi's Libya must be taken out so the Mediterranean - the mare nostrum of ancient Rome - becomes a NATO lake. Libya is the only nation in northern Africa not subordinated to Africom or Centcom or any one of the myriad NATO "partnerships". The other non-NATO-related African nations are Eritrea, Sawahiri Arab Democratic Republic, Sudan and Zimbabwe.
Moreover, two members of NATO's "Istanbul Cooperation Initiative" - Qatar and the United Arab Emirates - are now fighting alongside Africom/NATO for the fist time. Translation: NATO and Persian Gulf partners are fighting a war in Africa. Europe? That's too provincial. Globocop is the way to go.
According to the Obama administration's own official doublespeak, dictators who are eligible for "US outreach" - such as in Bahrain and Yemen - may relax, and get away with virtually anything. As for those eligible for "regime alteration", from Africa to the Middle East and Asia, watch out. Globocop NATO is coming to get you. With or without dirty deals.
Related Returning Bahraini woman recalls brutal attacks on protesters
Exposed: The US-Saudi Libya deal
By Pepe Escobar
Asia Times
You invade Bahrain. We take out Muammar Gaddafi in Libya. This, in short, is the essence of a deal struck between the Barack Obama administration and the House of Saud. Two diplomatic sources at the United Nations independently confirmed that Washington, via Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, gave the go-ahead for Saudi Arabia to invade Bahrain and crush the pro-democracy movement in their neighbor in exchange for a "yes" vote by the Arab League for a no-fly zone over Libya - the main rationale that led to United Nations Security Council resolution 1973.
The revelation came from two different diplomats, a European and a member of the BRIC group, and was made separately to a US scholar and Asia Times Online. According to diplomatic protocol, their names cannot be disclosed. One of the diplomats said, "This is the reason why we could not support resolution 1973. We were arguing that Libya, Bahrain and Yemen were similar cases, and calling for a fact-finding mission. We maintain our official position that the resolution is not clear, and may be interpreted in a belligerent manner."
As Asia Times Online has reported, a full Arab League endorsement of a no-fly zone is a myth. Of the 22 full members, only 11 were present at the voting. Six of them were Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) members, the US-supported club of Gulf kingdoms/sheikhdoms, of which Saudi Arabia is the top dog. Syria and Algeria were against it. Saudi Arabia only had to "seduce" three other members to get the vote.
Translation: only nine out of 22 members of the Arab League voted for the no-fly zone. The vote was essentially a House of Saud-led operation, with Arab League secretary general Amr Moussa keen to polish his CV with Washington with an eye to become the next Egyptian President.
Thus, in the beginning, there was the great 2011 Arab revolt. Then, inexorably, came the US-Saudi counter-revolution.
Profiteers rejoice
Humanitarian imperialists will spin en masse this is a "conspiracy", as they have been spinning the bombing of Libya prevented a hypothetical massacre in Benghazi. They will be defending the House of Saud - saying it acted to squash Iranian subversion in the Gulf; obviously R2P - "responsibility to protect" does not apply to people in Bahrain. They will be heavily promoting post-Gaddafi Libya as a new - oily - human rights Mecca, complete with US intelligence assets, black ops, special forces and dodgy contractors.
Whatever they say won't alter the facts on the ground - the graphic results of the US-Saudi dirty dancing. Asia Times Online has already reported on who profits from the foreign intervention in Libya (see There's no business like war business, March 30). Players include the Pentagon (via Africom), the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), Saudi Arabia, the Arab League's Moussa, and Qatar. Add to the list the al-Khalifa dynasty in Bahrain, assorted weapons contractors, and the usual neo-liberal suspects eager to privatize everything in sight in the new Libya - even the water. And we're not even talking about the Western vultures hovering over the Libyan oil and gas industry.
Exposed, above all, is the astonishing hypocrisy of the Obama administration, selling a crass geopolitical coup involving northern Africa and the Persian Gulf as a humanitarian operation. As for the fact of another US war on a Muslim nation, that's just a "kinetic military action".
There's been wide speculation in both the US and across the Middle East that considering the military stalemate - and short of the "coalition of the willing" bombing the Gaddafi family to oblivion - Washington, London and Paris might settle for the control of eastern Libya; a northern African version of an oil-rich Gulf Emirate. Gaddafi would be left with a starving North Korea-style Tripolitania.
But considering the latest high-value defections from the regime, plus the desired endgame ("Gaddafi must go", in President Obama's own words), Washington, London, Paris and Riyadh won't settle for nothing but the whole kebab. Including a strategic base for both Africom and NATO.
Round up the unusual suspects
One of the side effects of the dirty US-Saudi deal is that the White House is doing all it can to make sure the Bahrain drama is buried by US media. BBC America news anchor Katty Kay at least had the decency to stress, "they would like that one [Bahrain] to go away because there's no real upside for them in supporting the rebellion by the Shi'ites."
For his part the emir of Qatar, Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa al Thani, showed up on al-Jazeera and said that action was needed because the Libyan people were attacked by Gaddafi. The otherwise excellent al-Jazeera journalists could have politely asked the emir whether he would send his Mirages to protect the people of Palestine from Israel, or his neighbors in Bahrain from Saudi Arabia.
The al-Khalifa dynasty in Bahrain is essentially a bunch of Sunni settlers who took over 230 years ago. For a great deal of the 20th century they were obliging slaves of the British empire. Modern Bahrain does not live under the specter of a push from Iran; that's an al-Khalifa (and House of Saud) myth.
Bahrainis, historically, have always rejected being part of a sort of Shi'ite nation led by Iran. The protests come a long way, and are part of a true national movement - way beyond sectarianism. No wonder the slogan in the iconic Pearl roundabout - smashed by the fearful al-Khalifa police state - was "neither Sunni nor Shi'ite; Bahraini".
What the protesters wanted was essentially a constitutional monarchy; a legitimate parliament; free and fair elections; and no more corruption. What they got instead was "bullet-friendly Bahrain" replacing "business-friendly Bahrain", and an invasion sponsored by the House of Saud.
And the repression goes on - invisible to US corporate media. Tweeters scream that everybody and his neighbor are being arrested. According to Nabeel Rajab, president of the Bahrain Center for Human Rights, over 400 people are either missing or in custody, some of them "arrested at checkpoints controlled by thugs brought in from other Arab and Asian countries - they wear black masks in the streets." Even blogger Mahmood Al Yousif was arrested at 3 am, leading to fears that the same will happen to any Bahraini who has blogged, tweeted, or posted Facebook messages in favor of reform.
Globocop is on a roll
Odyssey Dawn is now over. Enter Unified Protector - led by Canadian Charles Bouchard. Translation: the Pentagon (as in Africom) transfers the "kinetic military action " to itself (as in NATO, which is nothing but the Pentagon ruling over Europe). Africom and NATO are now one.
The NATO show will include air and cruise missile strikes; a naval blockade of Libyia; and shady, unspecified ground operations to help the "rebels". Hardcore helicopter gunship raids a la AfPak - with attached "collateral damage" - should be expected.
A curious development is already visible. NATO is deliberately allowing Gaddafi forces to advance along the Mediterranean coast and repel the "rebels". There have been no surgical air strikes for quite a while.
The objective is possibly to extract political and economic concessions from the defector and Libyan exile-infested Interim National Council (INC) - a dodgy cast of characters including former Justice minister Mustafa Abdel Jalil, US-educated former secretary of planning Mahmoud Jibril, and former Virginia resident, new "military commander" and CIA asset Khalifa Hifter. The laudable, indigenous February 17 Youth movement - which was in the forefront of the Benghazi uprising - has been completely sidelined.
This is NATO's first African war, as Afghanistan is NATO's first Central/South Asian war. Now firmly configured as the UN's weaponized arm, Globocop NATO is on a roll implementing its "strategic concept" approved at the Lisbon summit last November (see Welcome to NATOstan, Asia Times Online, November 20, 2010).
Gaddafi's Libya must be taken out so the Mediterranean - the mare nostrum of ancient Rome - becomes a NATO lake. Libya is the only nation in northern Africa not subordinated to Africom or Centcom or any one of the myriad NATO "partnerships". The other non-NATO-related African nations are Eritrea, Sawahiri Arab Democratic Republic, Sudan and Zimbabwe.
Moreover, two members of NATO's "Istanbul Cooperation Initiative" - Qatar and the United Arab Emirates - are now fighting alongside Africom/NATO for the fist time. Translation: NATO and Persian Gulf partners are fighting a war in Africa. Europe? That's too provincial. Globocop is the way to go.
According to the Obama administration's own official doublespeak, dictators who are eligible for "US outreach" - such as in Bahrain and Yemen - may relax, and get away with virtually anything. As for those eligible for "regime alteration", from Africa to the Middle East and Asia, watch out. Globocop NATO is coming to get you. With or without dirty deals.
Related Returning Bahraini woman recalls brutal attacks on protesters
Friday, April 01, 2011
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