Barrick shuts hedge book as world gold supply runs out

Global gold production is in terminal decline despite record prices and Herculean efforts by mining companies to discover fresh sources of ore in remote spots, according to the world’s top producer Barrick Gold.

By Ambrose Evans-Pritchard, International Business Editor
Published: 7:20PM GMT 11 Nov 2009

Aaron Regent, president of the Canadian gold giant, said that global output has been falling by roughly 1m ounces a year since the start of the decade. Total mine supply has dropped by 10pc as ore quality erodes, implying that the roaring bull market of the last eight years may have further to run.

“There is a strong case to be made that we are already at ‘peak gold’,” he told The Daily Telegraph at the RBC’s annual gold conference in London.

“Production peaked around 2000 and it has been in decline ever since, and we forecast that decline to continue. It is increasingly difficult to find ore,” he said.

Ore grades have fallen from around 12 grams per tonne in 1950 to nearer 3 grams in the US, Canada, and Australia. South Africa’s output has halved since peaking in 1970.

The supply crunch has helped push gold to an all-time high, reaching $1,118 an ounce at one stage yesterday. The key driver over recent days has been the move by India’s central bank to soak up half of the gold being sold by the International Monetary Fund. It is the latest sign that the rising powers of Asia and the commodity bloc are growing wary of Western paper money and debt.

China has quietly doubled holdings to 1,054 tonnes and is thought to be adding gradually on price dips, creating a market floor. Gold remains a tiny fraction of its $2.3 trillion in foreign reserves.

Gold exchange-traded funds (ETFs) – dubbed the “People’s Central Bank” – have accumulated 1,778 tonnes, making them the fifth biggest holder after the US, Germany, France, and Italy.

Ross Norman, director of theBullionDesk.com, said exploration budgets had tripled since the start of the decade with stubbornly disappointing results so far.

Output fell a further 14pc in South Africa last year as companies were forced to dig ever deeper – at greater cost – to replace depleted reserves, not helped by “social uplift” rules and power cuts. Harmony Gold said yesterday that it may close two more mines over coming months due to poor ore grades.

Mr Norman said the “false mine of central banks” had been the only new source of gold supply this decade as they auction off reserves, but they are switching sides to become net buyers.

Barrick is moving fast to wind down the remaining 3m ounces of its infamous hedge book over the next twelve months, an implicit bet on rising gold prices over time.

Mr Regent said the company had waited too long to ditch the policy, which has made the company enemy number one among ‘gold bug’ enthusiasts. The hedges oblige Barrick to deliver part of its gold into futures contracts set long ago at levels far below today’s spot prices.

The strategy worked well in the falling market of the 1990s, but has cost the company dear in lost profits this decade. “Hindsight is always 20/20,” said Mr Regent, who was appointed from the outside earlier this year.

Barrick bit the bullet in the third quarter, taking a $5.7bn charge against earnings on hedge contracts. Liberation is at last in sight. In 2001 the hedge book topped 20m ounces.

Mr Regent said the hedge policy has weighed badly on the share price and irked investors, becoming a bone of contention at every meeting. The financial crisis brought matters to a head as markets fretted about counterparty risk. “It was clear to me that there were a significant number of institutions who wouldn’t invest in Barrick because of the hedge book,” he said.

Barrick produced 1.9m ounces of gold last quarter, down from 1.95m a year earlier. Costs have been “trending down” to $456 an ounce, though rising energy prices pose a fresh threat. Total reserves are 139m ounces, far ahead of rival Newmont Mining at 86m.

The hedge book venture has not been a happy one, but those who predicted that Barrick would eventually “blow up” on its contracts may owe the company an apology.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/industry/mining/6546579/Barrick-shuts-hedge-book-as-world-gold-supply-runs-out.html

Gold How High Can the Price Go? 

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/personalfinance/investing/gold/6537637/Gold-how-high-can-the-price-go.html

Large Hadron Collider broken by bread dropped by passing bird

The Large Hadron Collider’s woes have taken a faintly comic turn after the huge particle accelerator got broken by a piece of bread dropped by a passing bird.

By Tom Chivers
Published: 12:23PM GMT 06 Nov 2009

The 27-kilometer (16.8 mile) LHC suffered serious overheating in several sections after the small piece of baguette landed in a piece of equipment on the surface above the accelerator ring.

Dr Mike Lamont, the LHC’s Machine Coordinator, said that a “a bit of baguette”, believed to have been dropped by a bird, caused the superconducting magnets to heat up from 1.9 Kelvin (-271.1C) to around 8 Kelvin (-265C), near the mark where they stop superconducting.

A failure like this, known as a “quench”, can be expected at around 9.6 Kelvin, CERN engineer Dr Tadeusz Kurtyka told The Register.

In theory, had the LHC been fully operational, this could cause a catastrophic breakdown like that which occurred shortly after it was first switched on last year. However, the machine has several fail-safes which would have shut it down before the temperature rose too high.

This would have forced it out of action for a few days, but nothing like the year-long breakdown last year’s quench caused.

As it is, the LHC was only undergoing test firing. Full particle-smashing duties are scheduled to restart this month.

When fully powered up, the LHC’s two beams of protons and lead ions hurtling around the huge circle at a fraction of a percent below light speed each contain the energy of a Eurostar train travelling at full speed, according to the Cern site.

It was this vast energy getting out of control that smashed the machine last time, causing a huge spillage of liquid helium and throwing two 10-ton magnets off their mountings.

The succession of technical problems the LHC has suffered has led some physicists, apparently in all seriousness, to claim that it is being sabotaged by time-travelling particles from its own future.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/large-hadron-collider/6514155/Large-Hadron-Collider-broken-by-bread-dropped-by-passing-bird.html

Thanks Susan!

When E.T. phones the pope

By Marc KaufmanSunday, November 8, 2009

ROME — A little more than a half-mile from the Vatican, in a square called Campo de’ Fiori, stands a large statue of a brooding monk. Few of the shoppers and tourists wandering through the fruit-and-vegetable market below may know his story; he is Giordano Bruno, a Renaissance philosopher, writer and free-thinker who was burned at the stake by the Inquisition in 1600. Among his many heresies was his belief in a “plurality of worlds” — in extraterrestrial life, in aliens.

Though it’s a bit late for Bruno, he might take satisfaction in knowing that this week the Vatican’s Pontifical Academy of Sciences is holding its first major conference on astrobiology, the new science that seeks to find life elsewhere in the cosmos and to understand how it began on Earth. Convened on private Vatican grounds in the elegant Casina Pio IV, formerly the pope’s villa, the unlikely gathering of prominent scientists and religious leaders shows that some of the most tradition-bound faiths are seriously contemplating the possibility that life exists in myriad forms beyond this planet. Astrobiology has arrived, and religious and social institutions — even the Vatican — are taking note.

Father Jose Funes, a Jesuit astronomer, director of the centuries-old Vatican Observatory and a driving force behind the conference, suggested in an interview last year that the possibility of “brother extraterrestrials” poses no problem for Catholic theology. “As a multiplicity of creatures exists on Earth, so there could be other beings, also intelligent, created by God,” Funes explained. “This does not conflict with our faith because we cannot put limits on the creative freedom of God.”

Read More:  http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/11/06/AR2009110601899.html

 

By Chris Irvine
Published: 8:03AM GMT 11 Feb 2009

Gianfranco Ravasi: Monsignor Ravasi said Darwin’s theories had never been formally condemned by the Roman Catholic Church Photo: EPA

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Archbishop Gianfranco Ravasi, head of the Pontifical Council for Culture, said while the Church had been hostile to Darwin’s theory in the past, the idea of evolution could be traced to St Augustine and St Thomas Aquinas.

Father Giuseppe Tanzella-Nitti, Professor of Theology at the Pontifical Santa Croce University in Rome, added that 4th century theologian St Augustine had “never heard the term evolution, but knew that big fish eat smaller fish” and forms of life had been transformed “slowly over time”. Aquinas made similar observations in the Middle Ages.

Ahead of a papal-backed conference next month marking the 150th anniversary of Darwin’s On the Origin of Species, the Vatican is also set to play down the idea of Intelligent Design, which argues a “higher power” must be responsible for the complexities of life.

The conference at the Pontifical Gregorian University will discuss Intelligent Design to an extent, but only as a “cultural phenomenon” rather than a scientific or theological issue.

Monsignor Ravasi said Darwin’s theories had never been formally condemned by the Roman Catholic Church, pointing to comments more than 50 years ago, when Pope Pius XII described evolution as a valid scientific approach to the development of humans.

Marc Leclerc, who teaches natural philosophy at the Gregorian University, said the “time has come for a rigorous and objective valuation” of Darwin by the Church as the 200th anniversary of Darwin’s birth approaches.

Professor Leclerc argues that too many of Darwin’s opponents, primarily Creationists, mistakenly claim his theories are “totally incompatible with a religious vision of reality”.

Earlier this week, prominent scientists and leading religious figures wrote to The Daily Telegraph to call for an end to the fighting over Darwin’s legacy.

They argued that militant atheists are turning people away from evolution by using it to attack religion while they also urge believers in creationism to acknowledge the overwhelming body of evidence that now exists to support Darwin’s theory.

The Church of England is seeking to bring Darwin back into the fold with a page on its website paying tribute to his “forgotten” work in his local parish, showing science and religion need not be at odds.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/religion/4588289/The-Vatican-claims-Darwins-theory-of-evolution-is-compatible-with-Christianity.html

The Vatican’s search for ET

I stole this from Scattered Sheep…lol.  Thanks Guys!

http://scatteredsheep.wordpress.com/2009/11/11/studies-in-revelation/

You’ll Be Shocked To Discover Who Gave Birth To The Antichrist W. J. Mencarow – Refomation Church

http://www.sermonaudio.com/sermoninfo.asp?SID=12409199281

Roman Catholics are correct when they say their faith was founded by Peter in Rome. But it wasn’t the Apostle Peter.

“Men will readily rally around any one who can give the least appearance of plausibility to any doctrine that will teach them that they can be assured of happiness…though their hearts and natures are unchanged, and though they live without God in the world…” – Alexander Hislop, “The Two Babylons”

What you think the book of Revelation teaches determines how you live your life – are we to conquer the world for Christ or tread water until He rescues us on the last day? – and what you think the headlines mean. Do events in the Middle East prove we are on the brink of the end times? Is Antichrist about to be revealed? Is Armageddon around the corner?

This generation of Christians has been taught Futurism; that most of Revelation describes end-time events.

Futurism is a late 16th century Roman Catholic invention that was crafted to defend the Papacy against the claims of the Protestant Reformation. Sadly, most fundamentalists and evangelicals are unknowingly parroting Roman Catholic propaganda.

The historic Protestant view is that Revelation is a panorama of world history from the first century to the end of time. It reveals the rise and fall of nations, of Romanism, Islam, the Protestant Reformation, a future New World Order of one civil government and religion imposed upon the world. But it also reveals the final triumph of the Lord Jesus Christ and the Christianization of all nations BEFORE the end of history.

Please listen to all the sermons in this series to understand the historic Protestant view of the book of Revelation.

  666 – The Beast of Revelation, Antichrist; The Historic Protestant Interpretation

W. J. Mencarow – Refomation Church

http://www.sermonaudio.com/sermoninfo.asp?SID=715081640154

The church settled the meaning of the book of Revelation centuries ago. Sadly, this has been lost to the modern church.

This sermon series is an appeal to the church to recover that meaning.

Rev. 13:18 says understanding (or wisdom) is required to “count” the meaning of the number of the beast, 666. This is clearly not the human wisdom of this world, which God calls foolishness. I Cor. 3:19: “For the wisdom of this world is foolishness with God.” This is the problem with many of the claims you’ve heard about the meaning of 666 and the identity of Antichrist. What the Lord requires is not human wisdom, falsely called, but the wisdom that comes from reading and meditating upon the revelation of God through His written Word, the Bible, and living your life in obedience to it.

This sermon presents the interpretation of 666 that was held by the majority of Protestant theologians from the Reformation until the 1800s when mysticism on the one hand and liberalism on the other began to invade the church. This historic interpretation of the number of the beast has also been held by some proto-reformers (before the Protestant Reformation) and even by some of the church fathers going back to the second century — and possibly even before!

Follow link to listen to the show:  http://www.futurequake.com/FQ_PressRelease.htm

9 NOVEMBER 2009

AUTHOR RUSS BAKER UNCOVERS SHOCKING HISTORICAL DATA CONCERNING THE BUSH FAMILY, AND POSSIBLE HIDDEN CONNECTIONS TO DISTURBING WORLD-SHAKING EVENTS, ON THE 9 – 13 NOVEMBER 09 “FUTURE QUAKE” RADIO PROGRAMS

Nashville, TN – Distinguished investigative reporter and author Russ Baker reveals in his new book “Family of Secrets” (www.familyofsecrets.com) the disturbing, little-known history of the Bush family, and evidence of their likely association with dark national events from behind the scenes, with host “Doctor Future” and co-host Tom Bionic, airing daily during the week of 9 November on the “Future Quake” program, broadcast on the Christian talk radio station WENO, 760 AM in Nashville, TN (and archived at http://www.futurequake.com). Russ Baker is an award-winning investigative reporter, having written for “The New Yorker”, “The Nation”, “The New York Times”, and the ”Washington Post”, and has served as a contributing editor to the “Columbia Journalism Review”. His even-handed, non-partisan style is even reflected in his non-profit, reader-supported investigative news organization, operated at www.whowhatwhy.com. In this eye-opening interview, Mr. Baker discloses data from his years of independent research of records concerning the Bush family, focusing on events and subjects not covered by other investigators and biographers. It begins with a discussion of George H. W. Bush’s ancestors, including father Prescott Bush, who had involvement with Nazi industrial wartime suppliers, and a strong supporter of groups like the American Birth Control League (later to become Planned Parenthood, which then advocated concepts such as “negative eugenics” (involving sterilization and euthanasia of “less desirable” races and ethnic groups)), and his father’s associations with the Rockefeller family. The bulk of the discussion focuses on the far-reaching but largely unknown (by the public) life and career of George H. W. Bush, the 41st President, including his long-running association with the CIA from an early age uncovered by Mr. Baker. Most shocking, however, is the evidence revealed that may suggest a relationship of Mr. Bush to the events surrounding the President Kennedy assassination, as well as a motive and circumstantial evidence of potential complicity in the Watergate break-in (to dispense with President Nixon when he no longer served the interests of Bush and his high-placed associates, thereby facilitating his rise to power, and that of his partners Rumsfeld and Cheney). Most disconcerting, however, for those of evangelical convictions are the facts exposed concerning George W. Bush, including his suspect worldwide business interests, murky military career, and most importantly, new evidence suggesting an agenda-driven religious “experience” to court the support of evangelical leaders. Other curious family activities such as Neil Bush, and other jaw-dropping revelations comprise this constructive, if disconcerting discussion.

P.I.D. Radio 11/09/09: Fort Hood, Orlando, Ukraine

Isaiah 55

 ¹Ho, every one that thirsteth, come ye to the waters, and he that hath no money; come ye, buy, and eat; yea, come, buy wine and milk without money and without price.

 ²Wherefore do ye spend money for that which is not bread? and your labour for that which satisfieth not? hearken diligently unto me, and eat ye that which is good, and let your soul delight itself in fatness.

 ³Incline your ear, and come unto me: hear, and your soul shall live; and I will make an everlasting covenant with you, even the sure mercies of David.

 ⁴Behold, I have given him for a witness to the people, a leader and commander to the people.

 ⁵Behold, thou shalt call a nation that thou knowest not, and nations that knew not thee shall run unto thee because of the LORD thy God, and for the Holy One of Israel; for he hath glorified thee.

 ⁶Seek ye the LORD while he may be found, call ye upon him while he is near:

 ⁷Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts: and let him return unto the LORD, and he will have mercy upon him; and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon.

 ⁸For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith the LORD.

 ⁹For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts.

 ¹⁰For as the rain cometh down, and the snow from heaven, and returneth not thither, but watereth the earth, and maketh it bring forth and bud, that it may give seed to the sower, and bread to the eater:

 ¹¹So shall my word be that goeth forth out of my mouth: it shall not return unto me void, but it shall accomplish that which I please, and it shall prosper in the thing whereto I sent it.

 ¹²For ye shall go out with joy, and be led forth with peace: the mountains and the hills shall break forth before you into singing, and all the trees of the field shall clap their hands.

 ¹³Instead of the thorn shall come up the fir tree, and instead of the brier shall come up the myrtle tree: and it shall be to the LORD for a name, for an everlasting sign that shall not be cut off.

Habakkuk 1

 ¹The burden which Habakkuk the prophet did see.

 ²O LORD, how long shall I cry, and thou wilt not hear! even cry out unto thee of violence, and thou wilt not save!

 ³Why dost thou shew me iniquity, and cause me to behold grievance? for spoiling and violence are before me: and there are that raise up strife and contention.

 ⁴Therefore the law is slacked, and judgment doth never go forth: for the wicked doth compass about the righteous; therefore wrong judgment proceedeth.

 ⁵Behold ye among the heathen, and regard, and wonder marvelously: for I will work a work in your days which ye will not believe, though it be told you.

 ⁶For, lo, I raise up the Chaldeans, that bitter and hasty nation, which shall march through the breadth of the land, to possess the dwellingplaces that are not their’s.

 ⁷They are terrible and dreadful: their judgment and their dignity shall proceed of themselves.

 ⁸Their horses also are swifter than the leopards, and are more fierce than the evening wolves: and their horsemen shall spread themselves, and their horsemen shall come from far; they shall fly as the eagle that hasteth to eat.

 ⁹They shall come all for violence: their faces shall sup up as the east wind, and they shall gather the captivity as the sand.

 ¹⁰And they shall scoff at the kings, and the princes shall be a scorn unto them: they shall deride every strong hold; for they shall heap dust, and take it.

 ¹¹Then shall his mind change, and he shall pass over, and offend, imputing this his power unto his god.

 ¹²Art thou not from everlasting, O LORD my God, mine Holy One? we shall not die. O LORD, thou hast ordained them for judgment; and, O mighty God, thou hast established them for correction.

 ¹³Thou art of purer eyes than to behold evil, and canst not look on iniquity: wherefore lookest thou upon them that deal treacherously, and holdest thy tongue when the wicked devoureth the man that is more righteous than he?

 ¹⁴And makest men as the fishes of the sea, as the creeping things, that have no ruler over them?

 ¹⁵They take up all of them with the angle, they catch them in their net, and gather them in their drag: therefore they rejoice and are glad.

 ¹⁶Therefore they sacrifice unto their net, and burn incense unto their drag; because by them their portion is fat, and their meat plenteous.

 ¹⁷Shall they therefore empty their net, and not spare continually to slay the nations?

Habakkuk 2

 ¹I will stand upon my watch, and set me upon the tower, and will watch to see what he will say unto me, and what I shall answer when I am reproved.

 ²And the LORD answered me, and said, Write the vision, and make it plain upon tables, that he may run that readeth it.

 ³For the vision is yet for an appointed time, but at the end it shall speak, and not lie: though it tarry, wait for it; because it will surely come, it will not tarry.

 ⁴Behold, his soul which is lifted up is not upright in him: but the just shall live by his faith.

 ⁵Yea also, because he transgresseth by wine, he is a proud man, neither keepeth at home, who enlargeth his desire as hell, and is as death, and cannot be satisfied, but gathereth unto him all nations, and heapeth unto him all people:

 ⁶Shall not all these take up a parable against him, and a taunting proverb against him, and say, Woe to him that increaseth that which is not his! how long? and to him that ladeth himself with thick clay!

 ⁷Shall they not rise up suddenly that shall bite thee, and awake that shall vex thee, and thou shalt be for booties unto them?

 ⁸Because thou hast spoiled many nations, all the remnant of the people shall spoil thee; because of men’s blood, and for the violence of the land, of the city, and of all that dwell therein.

 ⁹Woe to him that coveteth an evil covetousness to his house, that he may set his nest on high, that he may be delivered from the power of evil!

 ¹⁰Thou hast consulted shame to thy house by cutting off many people, and hast sinned against thy soul.

 ¹¹For the stone shall cry out of the wall, and the beam out of the timber shall answer it.

 ¹²Woe to him that buildeth a town with blood, and stablisheth a city by iniquity!

 ¹³Behold, is it not of the LORD of hosts that the people shall labour in the very fire, and the people shall weary themselves for very vanity?

 ¹⁴For the earth shall be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the LORD, as the waters cover the sea.

 ¹⁵Woe unto him that giveth his neighbour drink, that puttest thy bottle to him, and makest him drunken also, that thou mayest look on their nakedness!

 ¹⁶Thou art filled with shame for glory: drink thou also, and let thy foreskin be uncovered: the cup of the LORD’s right hand shall be turned unto thee, and shameful spewing shall be on thy glory.

 ¹⁷For the violence of Lebanon shall cover thee, and the spoil of beasts, which made them afraid, because of men’s blood, and for the violence of the land, of the city, and of all that dwell therein.

 ¹⁸What profiteth the graven image that the maker thereof hath graven it; the molten image, and a teacher of lies, that the maker of his work trusteth therein, to make dumb idols?

 ¹⁹Woe unto him that saith to the wood, Awake; to the dumb stone, Arise, it shall teach! Behold, it is laid over with gold and silver, and there is no breath at all in the midst of it.

 ²⁰But the LORD is in his holy temple: let all the earth keep silence before him.

Habakkuk 3

 ¹A prayer of Habakkuk the prophet upon Shigionoth.

 ²O LORD, I have heard thy speech, and was afraid: O LORD, revive thy work in the midst of the years, in the midst of the years make known; in wrath remember mercy.

 ³God came from Teman, and the Holy One from mount Paran. Selah. His glory covered the heavens, and the earth was full of his praise.

 ⁴And his brightness was as the light; he had horns coming out of his hand: and there was the hiding of his power.

 ⁵Before him went the pestilence, and burning coals went forth at his feet.

 ⁶He stood, and measured the earth: he beheld, and drove asunder the nations; and the everlasting mountains were scattered, the perpetual hills did bow: his ways are everlasting.

 ⁷I saw the tents of Cushan in affliction: and the curtains of the land of Midian did tremble.

 ⁸Was the LORD displeased against the rivers? was thine anger against the rivers? was thy wrath against the sea, that thou didst ride upon thine horses and thy chariots of salvation?

 ⁹Thy bow was made quite naked, according to the oaths of the tribes, even thy word. Selah. Thou didst cleave the earth with rivers.

 ¹⁰The mountains saw thee, and they trembled: the overflowing of the water passed by: the deep uttered his voice, and lifted up his hands on high.

 ¹¹The sun and moon stood still in their habitation: at the light of thine arrows they went, and at the shining of thy glittering spear.

 ¹²Thou didst march through the land in indignation, thou didst thresh the heathen in anger.

 ¹³Thou wentest forth for the salvation of thy people, even for salvation with thine anointed; thou woundedst the head out of the house of the wicked, by discovering the foundation unto the neck. Selah.

 ¹⁴Thou didst strike through with his staves the head of his villages: they came out as a whirlwind to scatter me: their rejoicing was as to devour the poor secretly.

 ¹⁵Thou didst walk through the sea with thine horses, through the heap of great waters.

 ¹⁶When I heard, my belly trembled; my lips quivered at the voice: rottenness entered into my bones, and I trembled in myself, that I might rest in the day of trouble: when he cometh up unto the people, he will invade them with his troops.

 ¹⁷Although the fig tree shall not blossom, neither shall fruit be in the vines; the labour of the olive shall fail, and the fields shall yield no meat; the flock shall be cut off from the fold, and there shall be no herd in the stalls:

 ¹⁸Yet I will rejoice in the LORD, I will joy in the God of my salvation.

 ¹⁹The LORD God is my strength, and he will make my feet like hinds’ feet, and he will make me to walk upon mine high places. To the chief singer on my stringed instruments.