BP vs endangered turtle species: Take a wild guess as to who loses?

But the way in which endangered turtle species are dying is yet another shame on BP. Watch it all, but pay close attention to the 1:20 to 2:00 segment.

England team news

The England World Cup football team visited a Cape Town orphanage today. "It was heartbreaking to see their sad faces with no hope", said Jamal aged 6.

Colombia's coal mining accident

As very few people out there seem to give a shit about this, let's try again. Here's the always good Alonso Soto of Reuters on this horrible accident that would be headline news if the people who died spoke English or if the country of the accident wasn't high on the lovelist of people who speak English and want no evil spoken of its loveliness.

Hopes fade for survivors after Colombia mine blast

Jun 19, 2010 14:51 EDT

BOGOTA (Reuters) – Relatives of Colombian miners trapped in a coal mine began to lose hope of finding them alive on Saturday, three days after a blast buried 50 workers and killed at least 19 others.

Rescuers struggled with debris and gas after the explosion in northwestern Antioquia province late on Wednesday. Emergency workers tried to reach deep into the mine but said there was little chance of finding any miners alive 6,500 feet (2,000 metres) below the surface.

“The last thing you lose is hope, but we have no certainty or evidence that there are people alive down there,” said Alfredo Munoz, head of emergency services in Antioquia. “Rescue operations continue, but the gas buildup is slowing efforts.”

Colombian President Alvaro Uribe met relatives of the dead and missing in Amaga, a poor, rural town where the casualties were being buried in mass outdoor funerals.

“It has been hard to pull out the bodies, hopes are fading now,” said Byron Ossa, a police officer waiting for news of a missing relative who worked at the mine.

Uribe’s visit came a day before Colombians pick a new president in elections, putting in the spotlight on mining safety regulations. Colombia’s mining industry ranges from huge deposits run by multinationals to hundreds of small, makeshift pits that produce coal for continues here

Saturday music extra

Ten percent in his regular Friday! segment yesterday introduced this humble scribe to the best new track heard this year. The group is Alabama 3 (a.k.a 'A3'), the sound is a wonderful, addictive, fascinating mix of acid house and country, the song is called Vietnamistan.

Hopefully the pleasure of listening to this can be shared with a few IKN readers, too. Thanks be to the impeccable music taste of RickB at ten percent. Lots more A3 at this youtube link. You won't regret using it, especially for the live tracks.

A room with a view (part 8)

Today's shot is from reader HS and shows his sublime back garden in the rain.

It's a house in Panama, which shouldn't come as much surprise. What is surprising is that it sits in in the 'burbs of Panama City itself.

The Friday OT: R.E.M.; Orange Crush

R.E.M. in blazingly good form in this live show. Great take of a great song.



Dedicated to the tenpercenter, who gave us this news earlier in the week:

U.S.-Vietnamese panel endorsed a 10-year, 300-million-dollar “plan of action” to deal with the deadly health and environmental legacy of the U.S. military’s widespread use of “Agent Orange”

By contrast, the U.S. Veterans Administration (VA) last year alone paid out nearly two billion dollars to Vietnam veterans whose current ailments are believed to be tied to exposure to dioxins.

Last year, the U.S. Supreme Court ended a five-year court battle by refusing to hear an appeal by Vietnamese plaintiffs from judgements by lower courts that the main producers of the chemicals, Dow Chemical and Monsanto, could not be held liable for birth defects allegedly caused by exposure to Agent Orange.

More at 10% here

UPDATE: the tenpercenter sez:

Great live version, funkier and any performance that uses a loud hailer is aces in my book!
And then you remember what it's about, then add the pollution in all the other wars since and this is still not dealt with.

Question: When is a senior metals analyst not a senior metals analyst?

Answer: When he knows nothing about metals.

You just knew this Afghan mining thing about having one trillion (or is it three trillion?) dollars worth of minerals lying around would bring out the populist trolls, didn't you? And sure enough, head of the queue is The Great Pretender himself. Casey's Louis James writes the inevitable long-winded article that tries to make a serious point, but my absolute number one fave line in his FP note dated yesterday is this, while explaining why the $1Tn story is a crock:

"One does not have to be a geologist or an engineer to understand why."

Why is James keen on pointing this out? Simple; he's not a geologist or an engineer.

He's not a metallurgist, either. Nor is he a miner with decades of practical experience, come to think of it. Now, that's not such a bad thing for us ordinary Joes, as the world's population gets on just fine in life without even wanting to have a qualification in things metallic, but it is more than strange to have a non-qualified pretender such as James signing himself off as:

"Louis James is senior metals analyst for Casey Research in Vancouver."

So if an unqualified, self-appointed spokesperson on metals gets to be "senior metals analyst" at the band of merry dudes known as Casey Research, may the Good Lord protect us from the junior metals analysts over there.

Bellhaven (BHV.v)

Now that the trained monkey, knownothing on LatAm miners, proven liar and frontrunning crudball named Thom Calandra has played his typical pump and dump bullshit on Bellhaven Copper & Gold (BHV.v) and left his sheeple hanging out to dry (as usual), it might be time to take a second look at this stock.

Today's 21.5c looks closer to a decent entry point. IKN Weekly subscribers know more about this stock than most, btw. Disclosure: no position in BHV.v. DYODD, dude.

When the USA is welcome in Bolivia

This links to the blog of Daniel Goldstein, professor at Rutgers University and each year the organizer of a summer field school/service learning program in Bolivia.

This is the kind of thing that the USA does so very well and is a shining example of what that nation up North can do to improve the world. The 2010 summer program has just kicked off and Daniel has promised us regular updates as to what his group will be doing this year, so I suggest you check it out, RSS it and bookmark it. Thanks to locojhon for the headsup on this.

Chart of the day is.....

.....gold, monthly candles.

Trading Post (Pipita edition)

TheNewCrystallex (EC.v) down 11.4% at $0.195, but don't worry about it, greenhorn longsaps. Just remember to listen to the super secret inside tips that you internet friends kindly give you...y'know, those friends you've never met, know nothing about and only want to shear you again.

Nadagold (NG) up 1.2% at U$6.90. The recent fade from over nine bucks at the beginning of May has been pretty interesting, as it shows that even the knuckleheads in New York City are beginning to see this scam for what it is, even with gold rising. Meanwhile, Rick van Alphabet keeps spending your money. Gotta laugh..at the longs.

Mala Noche (MLA.v) unch at $0.39. The rollback will be 10-to-1 and will be done at 35c sez me. It might even be a buy after that's done. Vamos a verrrrr....

Explor Resources (EXS.v) down 1.1% at $0.45 and your humble scribe has just found out that Mexico "oh-no-never-an-ulterior-motive" Mike is on the payroll for this pump job too. Curiouser and curiouser, said Alice.

fwiw, this author has no position in any of the stocks mentioned today.

Readers mailbag on Greg McCoach

Some interesting mailbag in after yesterday's post on how Greg McCoach was pumping both Explor Resources (EXS.v) and his own $2,000 per year newsletter. I've had permission from both mailers to reprint here, so first up is an extract from reader 'PP' mail yesterday with..

"...quite right about the repeat performance of McCoach and EXS Otto and he did the same kind of adverts last year. As well now he has several other adverts on the web for the same service not just the one (ottonote: "Massive Gold Formation" "A Little Known Gold Mining Company Has Discovered Something Big") you mentioned. Another is Massive New Gold Find that goes with Little-Known Company Makes BIG Gold Find that I saw yesterday. There are others I've seen but they always click you through to wealthdaily.com and the PDF report you talked about."

(Bold type added). I think it's worth pointing out that reader PP mentioned he tried McCoach's service last year, paying $500 for three months of letters but did not renew. Then this morning, reader 'JR' sent over this (extracted):

At the last PDAC show and the Calgary Cambridge House show, McCoach was unabashedly pumping Explor to the audience. It sounded like a 30 minute advertisment for the company.
I began to think: Is this an independent analyst/newsletter writer.
How about a little disclosure here Greg: Do you own any position on Explor? Are there any conflicts of interest?
This guy seems able to duck from such things as "Forward Looking Statements"
What are our regulators doing to ensure full disclosure/muzzle this guy?

Kinda makes you think, doesn't it? McCoach must have got good results from the previous 2009 campaign if he's investing in several different internet advertising campaigns this time around (and it must cost a pretty penny too, as each time somebody clicks on one of those adverts it costs him money). Also, if he's devoting 100% of his showtime at the big conferences like PDAC to pumping this junior goldie (sidebar: PDAC on March 6th coincided with the EXS.v disappointing results on March 4th noted in yesterday's post) you kinda get the feeling he has serious skin in this game. I dunno...maybe I'm just imagining things. DYODD, dude.

Goddam Communists

I don't know about you, but I find it sickening how these lefty, hateful, regressive, government idiots in South America go around doing stupid and backward things like systematically reducing anemia in schoolchildren and giving free breakfasts to all school aged children to ensure attendance rates. These kids should be out there catching rainwater and giving it to Bechtel, for Pete's sake.

Oh....hold on...wait a moment.....
(this from bolivia.com)

In La Paz Bolivia, 165,000 rations of school breakfasts are distributed every day. In 2010, some 31 million pesos will be invested in this nutritional program. Thanks to the fortification of the school breakfasts and the addition of vitamn supplements, anemia has been reduced by 97.4% in the last ten years in the schools overseen in the La Paz municipality. The School's Complementary Alimentation Unit (Unidad de Alimentación Complementaria Escolar (UNACE)) with the support of other institutions such as Save the Children (2008-2010) reached this objective by fortifying the school breakfast rations with micronutrients such as Iron Sulphate, Vitamin A, Folic Acid and others, as well as supplying direct supplements in the last two years. continues here

Gammon Gold (GAM.to) (GRS): What? Another year of missed targets? Hoodathunkit...

What a freakin' joke dog of a gold miner this thing really is. They can't add up resources properly, they can't mine profitably, they have no idea about labour relations. You are the world's biggest prize patsy if you're still holding this PoS. Here's Reuters, here's the company "it's not our fault" wingeing NR and here's the thing that really matters:

As noted recently here at IKN, Dundee did the right thing by their clients and threw in the towel on Gammon in May after the last round of disappointments. By the looks of the note out of Desjardins this morning, it seems Brian Christie is about to do the right thing, too.

Gammon announces indefinite shutdown of El Cubo operations -- Brian Christie (phone number here) , brian.christie @ (email address here)

Impact: Negative

This morning, Gammon announced that it has indefinitely suspended operations at its El Cubo mine due to the continued labour disruptions and what it calls "untenable financial demands" made by the union workforce. As a result, 397 union workers have been terminated and charges are being filed against union executives.

Management is of the view that the mine has been rendered uneconomic, and that further investments (including its own time) are unwarranted. In discussions with the company, there is little indication of when operations will resume. Some of the non-union contractors from El Cubo will likely be relocated to Ocampo in the near-term.

In our view, this shutdown of the El Cubo operations puts Gammon's 2010 production guidance of 260,000-305,000 gold equivalent ounces at risk, given that it is unclear how long the mine will be non-operational. In our model, we had forecast 25% of Gammon's production coming from El Cubo. This mine constitutes approximately 15% of our US$7.67 NAV, and a three-month loss of production impacts our 2010 adjusted EPS by about US$0.07.

We will shortly be reviewing our 2010 forecast.

That Desjardin's forecast is currently a $10.25 price target, which is nothing short of la-la-land. This emperor has no clothes.

Colombia's coal miners

In our thoughts today are the men of the San Fernando coal mine, Amagá, Antioquia. Today's explosion that has killed at least three workers (some reports now say five) is the second fatal accident there in two years. Apparently up to 80 men are still trapped in the mine

But of course, Colombia needs no updating of its mining laws. Just keep piling your cash into the place and don't worry 'bout it, Canucks.

UPDATE: and it's not good news, either. Reports are now of 16 dead and 72 still trapped. President Uribe is on his way to the scene.

UPDATE 2: This is really terrible. 18 now confirmed dead and 70 feared dead. Here's Reuters in English.

that was a good start to the day

Carlitos, what a great player he is.

Bidding Afghanistan up

After the silliness noted earlier this week about the one trillion dollars worth of mineral suddenly discovered in Afghanistan, this morning brought an extra side order of VerySilly. AP reports that the minerals found lying around there are now worth THREE TRILLION, so it must be worth all those deaths and continuing with an unwinnable war, right?

It really makes you wonder just how stupid a) the US military is and b) how stupid the US military thinks the world is. Meanwhile, this humble scribe loved the breathless bit about how the Afghan officials are off to London next week to pitch the iron ore deposits to the Brits. After all, it was a Brit who found them in the first place.....169 years ago. Here's a quote:

"The quality of the ore is excellent, and the richest varieties are to be found," a surveyor wrote in a report on Afghanistan’s untapped natural resources.

The surveyor was one Captain Drummond, a British officer in the 3rd Light Cavalry. The year? 1841.

It's gonna be big news to the limeys, for sure. Meanwhile, if The Hawaiian really wants to know about the mineral wealth of Afghanistan, he should stop listening to the USGS and phone up Hunter Dickinson and ask them all about it. After all, it was HD who got kicked out of the country when the Chinese muscled in on the copper there.

Chart of the day is.....

.....gold, weekly candles:

If you look very very closely you may be able to see a trend.

Trickledown economics

h/t credit writedowns

RSS and mail (an in-house post)

I got asked today by a potential advertiser just how many people visit this humble corner of cyberspace, so instead of just telling that person (and as there's nothing to hide), I thought the info could make it into a post (bit navel-gazer yeah...but hey, it's a quiet market day and there's time to kill before Uruguay-South Africa kicks off) for all. So as you can now see up in the top right corner of the page and also in this post, there are currently 1772 readers who get their IKN on either RSS or the daily digest e-mail that arrives the morning after.

It's a little tougher to show the updated figures for direct site visitors, but take my word that there are typically the same amount again of visitors that come straight to the blog without using RSS or mail, which means the typical weekday viewer count is about 3,500 and pageviews comes in at 5,500 or 6,000 (it drops at the weekend, unsurprisingly). It's not and never will be a big traffic blog, but that's ok.

Finally, maybe regular direct visitors might want to try the RSS or mail versions like 1,772 people already use; it's probably easier for you than coming to the blog every single time, both services are run by Google/Feedburner and as such are both reliable and safe and both use full feed so there's nothing written here that's edited out. All you need to do to join either (or both) is to click the appropriate button up there on the right.

Greg McCoach pumps Explor Resources (EXS.v)

Apparently the mining newsletter tout named Greg McCoach has been putting out an internet advertising campaign that starts with the headline "Massive Gold Formation" and continues with "A Little Known Gold Mining Company Has Discovered Something Big". It then hopes you'll click through and download a PDF file, which then goes on for pages giving mouthwatering, greed-gland inspiring prose and vague teaser-type details without ever telling you the name of the touted company, and then prompts you to sign up for McCoach's $2,000 per annum subscription service.

Well there's no need to click on his ad and no need to pay up $2k for the sub, either. For what it's worth, the company he's pumping is Explor Resources (EXS.v), the same company he ramped last year with the same style of aggressive, hype-laden pump job on the company's Porcupine West property that turned out to be a market disappointment. This links through to the March 4th press release on the drillcore results that didn't match the waaaaaaaay overhyped expectations drummed up by McCoach and his merry band beforehand. You can tell just by looking at the price chart:


But fear ye not!!!! There are differences to the McCoach pump job on EXS.v this time:

1) Instead of calling EXS.v "the most exciting gold discovery of the past 14 years" as he did in 2009, this time McCoach gives EXS.v the billing of "the most exciting gold discovery of the past 50 years", which this author can only put down to inflation.

2) Last time the pump was about the company's Porcupine West property and the drill campaign there. Now that has turned out to be a bummer, the pump now concerns the two new drill campaigns at the company's 'Eastford Lake' and 'Montrose Gold' properties.

3) This time it's ......errrrr....different, Greg?

Just though I'd tell you. DYODD, dude. There ain't no shortcuts in this game.

Switzerland 1, Spain 0: Three thoughts

1) Chile vs Spain on June 25th might turn out to be an all-time classic.

2) There's a strong possibility that we get Brazil vs Spain in the last 16 round.

3) Mario Eggimann is the best name for a footballer ever.

Catching up with Orofino Gold Corp (ORFG.pk)

On April 12th, we noted the obvious bullshit scam called Orofino Gold (ORFG.pk) and had a good laugh at its news release built to sucker in the greenhorns. Here's how the stock has performed since then:

Hardly a surprise. Meanwhile, your author has today identified another obvious Colombian junior gold OTC scam and, as a couple of subbers are always wagging on at me for a US-based shortable, it'll be featured in IKN59 before making it to these pages some time next week. DYODD, dude.

Maradona: It takes an Argentine....

Over at True/Slant, Marcelo Ballvé today writes on Diego Maradona and this humble corner of cyberspace thoroughly recommends his note as a fair and balanced piece of journalism on the man. Ballvé has the advantages of 1) being Argentine himself 2) being away from the cauldron that is Argentina 3) being a good and perceptive writer. The result is an excellent summary of the life of one of South America's most famous sons. Here's a small extract as an appetite-whetter.

For better or worse, the Maradona highlight reel looms over the sport.

On Saturday, for example, the United States played England, and the English goalie botched a relatively easy save, clumsily fumbling the ball into the goal, allowing the underdog Americans to tie the game. The next day an English tabloid dubbed the incident “Hand of Clod.”

Soccer fans would know instantly that the quip is not original, but an allusion to Maradona’s line about his notorious goal against England in the quarterfinals of a World Cup 24 years ago in Mexico.

In that game, Maradona leapt to contest a ball near the goal, and coming up against the limits of his diminutive stature, punched it into the goal with his fist. The referee didn’t spot the handball, and Argentina won the game 2-1.

Asked later if it had been a handball, Maradona declared straight-faced it had been the “hand of God.”

However, this same gold-chain decorated midfielder who cheated to score one goal, also delivered a score in the same game considered the most brilliant World Cup score ever. It was a one-man dribbling assault from half-field with a perfect finish. Maradona led Argentina to win that World Cup.

Glory and shame, in equal measures— that has been Maradona’s legacy.

Read the whole thing here. Highly recommended.

Chart of the day is.....

...copper, weekly candle.

Colombia's Presidential Election Run-Off: The polls

Here according to notimex is how three of the main polling firms in Colombia are calling the June 20th run-off election for Colombia's presidency:

Maybe we shouldn't read these people too much and trust them considering the total pig's ear they made of the first round predictions, but really it'd now be a gargantuan surprise to see Santos beaten out by Mockus. Meanwhile, those versed in the language of Cervantes should link through to this interview of Santos in Colombia's daily El Tiempo, as it's pretty good and has the dude saying conciliatory things about everyone except Mockus. Even Chávez gets a fair hand, but it remains to be seen if the soon-to-be President Santos keeps the diplo about him when he takes over from his bossman.

Trading Post (triumphant return edition)

Trading Post returns from hiaitus due to ennui from repetition. Eschew obfuscation, that's what I say.

B2Gold (BTO.to) up 4% at $1.55 and taking a break from its morning volume/price surge. Congrats due to reader 'P' who I know for a solid fact took decent trading profits at $1.59. FWIW, smartypants 'P' is looking at $1.40 for a buyback, but I don't think it'll get that low. We shall see.

Antares Minerals (ANM.v) up 10.6% at $2.60. Volumes at 54k aren't stunning, but 10% up is 10% up, so no long can complain too much. ANM likes copper back at $3, to be sure. Another good reason to like this is the cash needed for beers Chez Otto will be minimal. DYODD on that one, dude.

Fronteer Gold (FRG) up 2.4% at U$6.95 and looks unstoppable at the moment. Volumes slightly above average, too.

Serengeti Resources (SIR.v) down 7.6% at $0.245. This smallcap copper explorer has seen resistance snap and a sharp drop in recernt days. it does pretty good volume normally and may offer up a flip for the braver amongst you. A lot depends on that cu spot price, though.

Salazar Resources (SRL.v) down 1.7% at $1.19. The market liked the news that SRL now has exploration permits for its smart looking VMS thingy in Ecuador and shot the PPS up around 30% last week. Today the company announced that the drill program is on and although trading slightly down, volumes are still strong. Not one I own, but people close to the project love the rocks on offer.

Today's fun BP trivia

As pointed out by The Guardian, the original name for BP was the First Exploitation Company.

What goes around comes around.

B2Gold (BTO.to), the volume junkie jumps again

Free offer: 'World Oil" magazine free subscription

We haven't done one of these for a while, but this offer looks pretty good and may interest readers out there, so check out the free subscription offer link for World Oil magazine below. If you decide to apply for your totally, 100% absoutely gratis for nothing free sub you get the most popular trade mag on hydrocarbons out there and your author gets a couple of pennies commish for sending you over. It's an all-round winnah winnah chikkin dinnah, so take advantage today.

Request Your Complimentary Magazine NOW! Is the leading magazine in oil and gas exploration, drilling and production, providing readers with information on offshore and onshore operations worldwide. For 86 years, World Oil has been the industry leader in delivering clear, concise, technical how-to editorial to its monthly worldwide audience of 36,000 decision makers. World Oil is the leading oil and gas trade journal for the exploration, drilling and production sector which provides technical and operating information as well as research and statistics. Geographic Eligibility: USA, Canada, Mexico, & Selected International Offered Free by: Gulf Publishing Company Other Resources from: Gulf Publishing Company

Appleton Exploration (AEX.v) kindly offers us a classic example of junior mining news release bullshit

It's deja vu all over again, as Appleton Exploration (AEX.v) throws sequins in the eyes of the market with another bullshit drilling result. You may recall last year, when AEX.v tried to make a one metre intersection at its Manalo project in Mali, W Africa sound like it was wide and something that it wasn't. Here are two extracts we wrote on June 25th 2009:

So now we cut to June 15th, 2009. This because AEX.v published a NR that screamed it had hit an intersection of 192g/t Au (6.17 ounces of gold per tonne) over 10 metres at the Manalo site. The share price rocketed from the 20c-or-so level to 60c and beyond, even though the NR was "rather vaguely worded"....and that's being generous.

The IKN post last year was more about the bullshit insider selling that was going on at AEX.v, but we covered the way the drill story finished, too:

And sure enough, when the NR hit the wires yesterday (June 24th 2009) to explain that the drill interception was less 10m at 192g/t and more one single metre that hit lucky on the same band that had been discovered previously the stock dropped like a stone.

So here we are in June 2010 and instead of bullshitting about a one metre intersection at Manalo and making mineralization sound wider than it is at the project, AEX.v is.....errrrrr....bullshitting about a one metre intersection at Manalo and making mineralization sound wider than it is at the project. Today's NR headline reads.....

Appleton Intersects 31 Metres of 2.79 g/t Au at Manalo

....but when we check out the drillhole as reported, it turns out that AEX.v is intersecting the very same vein we knew existed before and smearing out the results.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------
                             Fire                    
  From     To   Length     Assays   Check Screen Metallic Assays
Drill Hole     (m)    (m)      (m)    Au g/t                         Au g/t
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
MDL09-086      47    108       61       1.62                           0.95
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
incl     47     65       18       0.65                           0.73
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
incl     65     77       12       0.17                           0.11
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
incl     77    108       31       2.79                           1.43
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
incl    102    108        6      12.93                           4.73
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
incl    106    107        1      57.30                           2.29
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

Y'see, that "2.79 g/t over 31m" (do the math and the number 86.49 pops out) is mostly accounted for by the one metre of 57.3 g/t gold found between 106m and 107m at the bottom of that list, from the same vein that AEX tried to BS the market with last year (check that chart above to see what happened when the truth came out). Or if you like, AEX.v is telling us,

"We have this nice 57.3 g/t gold vein, but it's skinny and it's 350 feet underground. And then the 30 metres above that vein grades less than one gram per metre of gold on average. But hey....let's throw them together and make it sound like thirty metres of sexiness. Freakin' dumbass public ain't gonna look further than the headline anyway."

In the end we should thank this no-hope company and its bullshitting management for offering us such a clear example of the way drill results are spun out to try and fool us retail traders. This company is untouchable and its management team clearly unscrupulous, but it's not the only junior explorer out there that tries to lipstick its pigs and pretends it might have a mine on its hands. DYODD, dude.

UPDATE 11:00am: Here's the intraday chart of AEX.v:

They even tried to pump-prime this bullshit at the bell and bid it up. Waddya say to the action in Appleton so far, owly?

Life is not complete....

.....until you have seen the recent 1-1 draw between England and the USA done in a 1:30 Lego stop-motion video.



More to check out here at the maker's website, including Germany's 4-0 hammering of the Socceroos.

Chart of the day is...

....crude oil futures, weekly candle.

Inflation or deflation? That's the big macro question that needs its answer in 2010 (and squillions will be won and lost on getting it right, too). Following oil gives us a commodity slant on the question and, for what it looks like at leasdt, crude can't seem to make up its mind, either. But what we do have is a U$70/bbl level that's become a strong support (caveat: it's broken under $70 on a couple of days here and there...we're taking a weekly view remember).

So is the trade "follow the channel"? Could be true and if it is, we're set for a happy few weeks now as inflation expectations come from good biz numbers and oil goes higher and China says more pretty things and we all love a bull run don't we? But me personally, I'm not buying it. I see weakness all around and the chance of reversals in all sorts of things (not just oil) is high. It's time to be defensive methinks. Be careful out there and DYODD.

Who loves Buenaventura (BVN)?

Johnson Matthey Ltd, that's who loves Buenaventura (BVN). This chart created from the data on page 44 of BVN's latest 20-F:

Gold miner wonks of the world, unite! DYODD, dude.

Cananea, a destroyed mine

That's the title of this report in Mexico's Kiosco Mayor Noticias of Sonora. Reporter Francisco Rodriguez was invited to the site of the copper mine by its owners Southern Copper (SCCO)/Grupo Mexico to see what sort of state it was in now that the striking miners have been dislodged and police have taken control (according to the report, some 1,000 officers are still on site and guarding the facility). Here's the opening paragraph of his report translated:

Cananea, a Destroyed Mine

What Kiosco saw yesterday was a destroyed mine, inoperable for at least the next 12 or 14 months. For it to go back into production, around U$114m in investment will be necessary. Reporters from (Sonora) state and from Mexico City were invited yesterday by the company diretcors to Cananea to tour the mine and verify the state of installations after its long period of inactivity. Continues here

non-gold mining in Paraguay

Latin American Minerals (LAT.v), Sheldon Inwentash's Hail Mary shot at mining gold in Paraguay, was featured in this report by Paraguay's newspaper of record, ABC Color, late last month. To say that progress has been slow over at LAT.v is an understatement but at least here we find out why. The report tells of local protests, of artisanal miners who want a part of the LAT.v Paso Yobái concession handed over so they can mine for gold, of violent protests against the ABC Color reporter who covered the story etc. The last paragraph of the report seems to sum up the situation well, as the reporter quotes local company manager Juan Carlos Benítez:

"Benítez added that for the last 22 days the company has removed its personnel from Paso Yobái, due to violent threats from the protestors. "

Moral: When playing the LatAm junior mining sector, stick to the serious countries.

Utterly bizarre

This story in the NYT yesterday has been sent over by four people already. It starts like this:

WASHINGTON — The United States has discovered nearly $1 trillion in untapped mineral deposits in Afghanistan, far beyond any previously known reserves and enough to fundamentally alter the Afghan economy and perhaps the Afghan war itself, according to senior American government officials. continues here

It's just the most bizarre thing I've read in ages. Just imagine that superduper discovery moment, folks, cos it's straight out of Catch 22....

Grunt: "Oh look what I found here, Sir!"

General: "What's that, soldier?"

Grunt: "Look Sir! A trillion dollars worth of minerals Sir!"

General: "Good work, soldier. I'll tell the President immediately."

So the NYT today informs on some strange discovery that neither the US (nor Russia before it) had any idea about? They just kinda started digging around after entering Afghanistan and found all this stuff by accident and had no inkling of its existence before? My stars, you gringos make me laugh.

UPDATE: Via mail, reader 'MP' chimes in with, "Is that 43-101 compliant?".

Chart of the day is....

....Bolivia's Central Bank International Currency Reserves, January 2000 to date.

This gets very big if you click on it, as it contains the monthly development numbers on the line so that the person who requested it, DC, can see exact changes.

Peru's racism

This is "el Negro Mama", a character from Peru's most
popular primetime comedy show

And this is Jorge Benavides, the man who
created and plays El Negro Mama.

Dan Collyns' of the Beeb writes a good and extensive note on the deep-seated racism in Peru. It's tempting to paste the whole report up because it's quality stuff, but we're going to respect origins, just put up one small extract and encourage you to click through and read it all in situ:

Racial stereotypes are reinforced on a daily basis in the media. Tabloid newspapers use crude sexual innuendo to describe a black congresswoman in a way they would not dare refer to a white member of parliament.

They compare a black footballer to a gorilla when he loses his temper on the pitch.

And on prime-time Saturday night television, the country's most popular comedy programme abounds with racial stereotypes with which the audience are so familiar they scarcely question what they are watching.

Go here to read more.

The IKN Weekly, out now

IKN58 has just been sent to subscribers. Main feature this week is an updated fundamentals report on Pediment Gold Corp (PEZ.to) that looks at recent happenings and tries to work out if there's value in the stock at current levels.

Then there's other stuff, too.