Ahorita nomas

As noted yesterday, Lima Peru has a supply shortage of LNG natgas for fuel (cars, cooking etc). We now hear from Peru's Ministry of Enrgy and Mining that the problem will be solved "in a few days". Says minister Pedro Sánchez:

"We have a ship loaded with 17 million tonnes (of natgas) that can't be docked to deliver to the Zetagas and Solgas terminals in Callao (due to the current high seaswell).......this is a temporary problem and will be resolved in the next few days."

Therefore, IKN would like to remind people of observations made in a different context regarding timescales in South America many moons ago. Some terminology to note:

1) "Ahorita pues" (right now), means any time from now until past the next meal time.

2) "Dame un segundo" (give me a second), means exactly that, but it might mean a second that's embedded anywhere inside the next hour.

3) "Aqui nomas" (right here), used to tell you where the nearest bank/telephone/police station/taxi rank etc etc is, might involve a walk of between ten metres and six blocks

4) "Ya viene" (s/he's coming now), used by somebody's secretary to denote the imminent arrival of the boss. See definition of point 1) above for further details.

What could possibly go wrong? Spanish lesson complete, please enjoy your day.

Mining PRs and the Ottotrans™, Part 19

Another in our occasional series that tries to wade through the thicket of words junior mining companies love to present to the world and sort out their real meanings. Today's example is just off the wires, from Carpathian Gold (CPN.to).

This is what they wrote:

TORONTO, ONTARIO--(Marketwire - July 7, 2010) - Carpathian Gold Inc. (TSX:CPN - News; the "Corporation" or "Carpathian") wishes to provide a progress update on its wholly owned Riacho dos Machados ("RDM") Gold Project located in the state of Minas Gerais, Brazil and on the Rovina Valley Project ("RVP"), located in west-central, Romania.

RDM Gold Project, Brazil

A Feasibility Study ("FS") is nearing completion and is following the guidelines of the NI 43-101 Preliminary Economic Assessment ("PEA") that was announced on August 12, 2009. The FS will be released within the upcoming weeks. The updated resource estimate, reserve estimate, engineering studies, and permitting activities are all advancing in parallel with key progress points highlighted below.

--  Resources/Reserves and Geotechnical: An updated NI 43-101 compliant
  resource estimate to be used for the FS is near completion. Five drill
  rigs are presently on site, including 3 diamond drill rigs for ore
  definition and 2 geotechnical rigs. Following the ore definition
  drilling, the diamond drill rigs will be utilized for testing strike
  extensions and new exploration targets. A minimum of 6,000 m of ore
  definition and exploration drilling is planned for the present program
  and this follows the 32,000 m of drilling that has been completed to
  date on the RDM gold project.

--  Engineering/Metallurgy: All capital costs, operating costs,
  infrastructure, layout design and mining plans required for the FS are
  essentially complete with optimization work underway integrating the
  various studies to enhance the robust economics of the project. Recent
  metallurgical test work results support the earlier work performed for
  the PEA of 90% or better gold recovery. Indications from the ongoing FS
  support the PEA study results of low cost, near-term +100,000 oz per
  year gold production.

--  Permitting: As previously announced (April 14, 2010), the Corporation
  has already been granted the critical path time line license, the
  Licenca Previa ("LP") that allows the earthworks in the mine, water
  retention and tailing dams to be constructed. All technical
  documentation required for the Licenca Instalacao ("LI") that will allow
  construction to begin on the Project, has been compiled and will be
  submitted by mid-July to the state environmental agency, SUPRAM, for
  their review and approval. As previously announced on June 21, 2010, all
  surface lands required for the life-of-mine footprint for the open pit
  mining operation have now been acquired.

--  Project Financing: The project is well financed at this stage as a
  result of the Macquarie Bank Limited US$30 Million gold sale and
  purchase agreement that closed on May 21, 2010. Management is evaluating
  non-equity project finance options and is in continuous discussions with
  various financial institutions, with the aim of obtaining additional
  project financing upon completion of the FS.

Rovina Valley Project, Romania

Following the release of the positive PEA study (announced March 23, 2010), the Corporation embarked on a deep drilling program on one of its three gold-rich copper porphyries, the Ciresata porphyry. The PEA study indicated a long life project of 19 years, producing approximately 200,000 oz of gold and 50 million pounds of copper annually.

--  The results of the first deep drill hole (RDG-16) on the Ciresata
  Porphyry were released on May 11, 2010 and included 668 m at 0.70 g/t Au
  and 0.15% Cu and includes 208 m at 1.13 g/t Au and 0.19% Cu. This drill
  hole verified the geologic model in its upper part serving as an in-fill
  hole and more importantly has extended the Au-Cu mineralization
  approximately 300 m below the present resource estimate that was
  utilized in the PEA study.

--  Deep drilling has resumed on the Ciresata porphyry to evaluate
  mineralization depth extensions below the present resource estimate.
  This program will eventually be expanded to evaluate known mineralized
  targets lateral to the deposit.

--  The Corporation is continuing with its long lead EIA and SIA work,
  including its proactive local stakeholder engagement programs. These
  programs includes interactive local community hall public meetings and
  partnership programs with local NGO's (with European Union funding) and
  community leaders to implement community-based projects. The Rovina
  Valley Project has no legacy mining issues and the proposed mine site
  footprint developed from the PEA does not include any known protected
  heritage sites or archaeological occurrences.

--  As previously announced, a consortium of State-recognized independent
  consulting groups have been retained for the purpose of preparing a
  technical report to convert the Rovina Exploration License into a Mining
  License as per the norms of the National Agency of Mineral Resources
  ("NAMR"). This report includes preliminary evaluations of environmental
  factors, risk factors and economic benefits as well as defined
  resources/reserves along with mining and processing, all to be reviewed
  and approved by the NAMR for Mining License designation. The work
  program for this study and the report are progressing on schedule for
  the submittal of this document to the NAMR in Q4 2010.

Mr. Titaro, P. Geo., is the qualified person (as defined in National Instrument 43-101) responsible for preparing the information, including technical information, contained in this news release.

And this is what it means:

Dear shareholder. Although we don't have real news at present, we've decided to publish this because we will have some news in the future. We still exist. Please stop selling our stock down. Thank you.

New Gold (NGD): Sheer coincidence

You just know that this.......

New Gold Inc. (NGD)						As of July 6th, 2010
Filing Date	Transaction Date	Insider Name	Ownership Type	Securities	Nature of transaction	# or value acquired or disposed of	Unit Price
Jul 05/10	Jun 29/10	Gallagher, Robert	Direct Ownership	Common Shares	10 - Disposition in the public market	-350,000	$6.604
Jul 05/10	Jun 29/10	Gallagher, Robert	Direct Ownership	Common Shares	51 - Exercise of options	160,000	$3.210
Jul 05/10	Jun 29/10	Gallagher, Robert	Direct Ownership	Common Shares	51 - Exercise of options	190,000	$2.710
Jul 05/10	Jun 29/10	Gallagher, Robert	Direct Ownership	Options	51 - Exercise of options	-160,000	$3.210
Jul 05/10	Jun 29/10	Gallagher, Robert	Direct Ownership	Options	51 - Exercise of options	-190,000	$2.710

....has absolutely nothing to do with this:

"On July 7, the Fifth Auxiliary District Court in Mexico City denied the company's appeal against the September 2009 ruling by the Federal Court of Fiscal and Administrative Justice that ordered SEMARNAT, the Mexican government's environmental regulatory agency, to cancel the company's EIS in November 2009.

.........

""While we are disappointed by this most recent decision, we will continue to pursue all avenues to ensure the continuous operation of Cerro San Pedro," stated Robert Gallagher, President and Chief Executive Officer."

I mean, it's only 350,000 options with (pre-tax) net proceeds of $1.28m. Who would ever screw over their shareholders for such a measly sum?

A gold chart

By 'popular' demand.
DYODD, dude.

Chart of the day is.....

......the five day performance of nine small silver stocks and silver via its ETF (SLV):

(click to enlarge)

Pretty crappy, huh?

Arizoname!

To w00t the US Federal Government's long overdue move to block the institutionalisation of racism in Arizona today, let's run with La Familia del Barrio's awesome clip on the subject once again (with English subtitles):

This is not for under 18s or those offended easily. It is funny as hell.

World Cup Trivia

Ever since the first tournament in 1930, when the World Cup has been played outside of Europe a European team has never won it. That 80 year stat will end on Sunday.

And while we're at it, when it's been played in Europe a European team has always won except for Brazil in the Sweden hosted 1958 finals.

What's going on at Kinross (K.to) (KGC)?

Check the comparative chart of Kinross (K.to) (KGC) for yourself:

So what is it, Fruta del Norte problems? The fact that the market has finally recognized that Cerro Casale is an uneconomic dog of an asset? Paid too much for Underworld? Or perhaps something murky at Kupol? Whatever it is, N.Am's 4th biggest gold producer is seriously lagging its field. Inquiring minds, etc.........

pot, meet kettle

Bina makes for a good read this morning. Plenty of prose to chew at her post linked right here but I thought I'd get to the grain and go to the sources. Here's one:

Intolerant governments across the globe are "slowly crushing" activist and advocacy groups that play an essential role in the development of democracy, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said Saturday.

She cited a broad range of countries where "the walls are closing in" on civic organizations such as unions, religious groups, rights advocates and other nongovernmental organizations that press for social change and shine a light on governments' shortcomings.

Among those she named were Zimbabwe, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Ethiopia, Cuba, Egypt, Iran, Venezuela, China and Russia continues here

And here's the evidence Hillary is talking about...... errrr..... from the G-20 summit in Toronto.


Go read about how they treat Globe&Mail reporters, too. Cute.

How South America works (or doesn't)

This week brings a typical little tale of the exasperating side of life in South America. In Lima Peru at the moment, there is an acute shortage of LNG (natgas for retail consumption) which is affecting the daily life of citizens. For the last couple of years (largely due to the Camisea project and the new supply of the stuff) Limeños have been encouraged to switch their cars to LNG fuel, as it's cheaper and as most of Lima is pretty flat the resulting power loss (about 15% compared to normal fuels, i'm lead to believe) doesn't make much of a performance difference in urban areas. Result; many cars and vehicles now run on LNG fuel. Normal.

It should have been a great plan and so far it's been working, but this week the supply line has been cut. The reason is that the gas isn't piped anywhere close to Lima, but is moved to the coast at Pisco (250km South of Lima), loaded onto cargo ships and then shipped to the Callao port just North of Lima for distribution. As the last week or so has seen rougher seas than normal, the upshot is that a single large cargo ship hasn't been able to hook up to the supply pipes and then steam up North.

I mean...WTF!!! It's suddenly occurred to Peruvians that......that.....The Pacific Ocean has big waves every now and again! And because of that, the limited amount of LNG in Lima right now is being dedicated to home and building use, so all the taxis in a city of eight million people that have converted to LNG (and that's a solid percentage of the cars, people) are sitting at home, doing nothing. Meanwhile, people who need those taxis to do their normal daily doings are fighting for normally fueled cars that have hiked their prices.

This kind of shit is so typical of South America (not just Peru). A plan is put together, no risk analysis is ever performed, no weak links in the chain ever identified and when the obvious thing goes wrong the whole shebang just grinds to a halt. Remember earlier this year when half of Cuzco's hotels were emptied because Macchu Pichu was off limits because of a landslide that affected a bit of railtrack? Same thing.

• Nobody thought of a separate pipeline to directly supply the country's capital.
• Nobody ever took into account possible rough seas and built loading facilities to take care of that eventuality.
• Nobody....ever....thinks.

It happens a lot. Build a house in this continent and you get to see, close up and personal, just how improvised things are. Yer man will do about his work, build in a problem without ever telling you, then suddenly when the problem is discovered you hear the famous "And now what can we do?" while he looks at you directly in the eye, as if the blame is shared between him and you. Damn, it's at moments like those I'm fully reminded that I'm a gringo and always will be. It's also a moment when I'm happy not to have too many sharp knives laying around the place.

Rant over. Thank you for your patience.

Guess who's coming to dinner

This morning brings an eminent visitor to our humble corner of cyberspace:

VISITOR ANALYSIS
Referrer	No referring link
Host Name	cog-158.osc.gov.on.ca
IP Address	38.112.100.158 [Label IP Address]
Country	Canada
Region	Ontario
City	Toronto
ISP	Ontario Securities Commission
Returning Visits	2

Visit Length 21 hours 41 mins 50 secs

And if you're wondering which post interested the OSC to come visit, it's this one on Nautilus (NUS) (NUS.to) and Porter Scamsberry yesterday. Even more joyously, our friends at the OSC who have managed to convict just one serious fraudster in the last ten years also hung around the blog (21 hours!!) and decided to check out IKN's coverage of ATW Gold (ATW.v). Better late than never, guys........

US Gold (UXG) has a resource number

This morning, US Gold (UXG) (UXG.to) the junior headed up by Rob McEwen that seems to have missed on its first objectives in Nevada but struck quite nicely on its El Gallo project in Mexico, released a first resource estimate for said Rooster (if you know your Spanish translations). The news release is here and it's interesting.

So to pre-warn subscribers, we'll be taking a closer look at UXG via a NOBS fundamental report in IKN62, out next Sunday.

Charts of the day are....

...road traffic accident figures for 2009.

So yesterday there was a media splurge on the publication of The Andean Community (aka CAN, comprising of Colombia, Ecuador, Peru and Bolivia) and the amount of road traffic accidents they'd all had in 2009. Here's the chart that comes from the figures, (example report here) which also compares each country to its year 2000 stats the same way as nearly all the reports did:

click to enlarge

We see that in 2009 Bolivia had the most accidents, with 410 for every 100,000 population. Then comes Colombia (though we note the rate has dropped in the last 10 years), then Peru and finally Ecuador. Sure enough, the anti-Evo media in Bolivia started on their 'world's gonna end' stuff thanks to the numbers.

Then the raw numbers for deaths were also published in the reports, but without any population count context. So this author decided to do the pro rata calculations himself, getting population figures for each country from the CIA Factbook (the best thing them spooks ever did was launch that site...great stats homebase). So here's how road traffic deaths per 100,000 look for the four countries and also as superduper extra context, the stats for Argentina, the USA and the UK (the sources are mentioned there on the chart):

click to enlarge

So it seems that although there are more accidents per 100k in Bolivia, they tend not to be as life-threatening as in the other countries....more prangs, less speed. On the whole, the Andean region is basically on a par with the fatalities rate of The USA (more or less, Ecuador pushing the envelope a bit). This might not be so, however, if we look at the different metric of deaths per km driven. That number isn't calculated down here, it is up there and I'm guessing (though not sure) that the USA's average would drop if we went with it. Meanwhile, in The United Kingdom they obviously drive like whusses.

But Argentina is the real context here. Man, I know how they drive and it doesn't surprise me to see double the death rate of Bolivia; total dumbasses behind the wheel who all think they're Fangio.

If you're interested, here's the dataset:

2009 deaths		pop. (100k) (CIA Factbook)	deaths per 100k population
Argentina	7885	413.43201	19.07
Ecuador	1998	147.90608	13.51
Colombia	5634	442.05293	12.75
USA	33963	3102.328630	10.95
Peru	3243	299.070030	10.84
Bolivia	973	99.47418	9.78
UK	2222	612.84286	3.63

Panama, South Korea, copper, mystery and disclosure

Yesterday in IKN61, we ran this below as one part of the 'Regional Politics' section of the letter. Now, I fully expected Inmet Mining (IMN.to) to make an announcement on this today, as an LOI of the multibillion dollar magnitude would need immediate disclosure if true, but here we are long after the bell and not a peep from IMN about this deal.

So is it a deal, or has the ADN news agency been making things up?

Panama: South Korea sends in the big guns and gets results

In Central America, SICA is an important working group of countries. SICA stands for the ‘Central American Integration System’ and the organization comprising of Belize, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Nicaragua, Panama, with The Dominican Republic as an associate member, along with Honduras that was suspended from membership due to the 2009 coup but has been allowed to rejoin as a full member after this meeting.

Last week it was Panama’s turn to host the SICA summit meeting and one of the guests of honour at the conference was South Korea’s President, Lee Myung-bak. He wasn’t there just for protocol photo shoots either, as his country is very keen on participating in the development of large-scale mining in Panama, particularly in the rich copper deposits the country has to offer.

Already he has seemingly met with success on his trip. Spain’s ADN newswire reports (6) that South Korea’s Eximbank, heading up a consortium of financiers, has this weekend signed a Letter of Intent (LOI) with Inmet Mining (IMN.to) to develop its ‘Panama Copper’ project in said country in conjunction with Korea Resources, LS-Nikko Copper and Korea Export Insurance (KEIC). The South Koreans will provide all or part of the financing necessary (details on that are not out yet) and will also have an option to acquire 20% of the project directly.

Inmet’s ‘Panama Copper’ is a very big asset, with resources that allow plans for 51,000 metric tonnes of copper per year over a 30 year mine life. According to the LOI agreement production would be slated to begin in 2015. Meanwhile, it’s already known that South Korea is also interested in Panama’s other big untapped copper deposit called Cerro Colorado.

Medoro Resources (MRS.v): Quick Frank, roll out the monkeys again!

You tell him, Thom

Well, it's not working is it Frankie? You tried back in April with the Can of Corn plus Thom Calandra trained monkey attack, but your ridiculously expensive, laughably overhyped and clearly undertruthed Medoro (MRS.v) just can't seem to keep enough Viagra in its system.

So c'mon Frankie, get on the phone! Tell them Zeds to do something! Offer yer man Thom a few more worthless warrants! You know it makes sense, man!

Dead reporters

Via the wires, we hear today that there were 59 journalists killed in the first six months of 2010, up from 53 in the same period of 2009, all this from the publishers, the Press Emblem Campaign. Top region for deaths was Latin America, weighing in with a full 24 of those killings. Here's the regional breakdown:

Top was Mexico, second that "now it's all back to normal, move along now, nothing to see here" bastion of wonderfullness called Honduras, third was Colombia, fourth Venezuela.

You probably only heard about the deaths in Venezuela.

Porter Stansberry plays the investment analyst community like a bunch of patsies

Here above is the chart for Nautilus (NUS.to) (NUS) and you'll note a pretty impressive climb in the last couple of days, up as much as 70%. The reason is this pump job linked here, published by scamster Frank Porter Stansberry and his crew.

Look the guy is a total scumball that preys on investing sheep, but I have to give him credit for one thing; he's smarter than the average scumball. Y'see, when Stansberry published his "OH MY GOD YOU GOTTA BUY BUY BUY THIS THING" promo pump last week, promising to reveal all on July 12th in a ConfCall or on July 8th to "special" clients who paid up moolah, he left so many breadcrumbs in his teaser that anyone who knows the sector could work out it was Nautilus he was talking about (gold a mile under the Pacific, 5000km from his hometown etc etc...this is a natch).

So what happens? The investment players think they're all smart, think they're getting a run on Stansberry's promo and buy into the stock now. They don't see what StansberryScumball is up to:

He's already bought in and he's selling into this move right now.

Or in other words, the people who think they're clever are the ones getting played like violins. DYODD.

UPDATE, two hours after the opening bell: HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAA!!!!!!!!

UPDATE 2: Reader 'B' sent in this mail and then allowed me to re-print here. I concur 100%.

You gotta almost feel sorry for the poor suckers that buy into such an obvious BS pump jobs--GOLD SANDS on the ocean floor, highest grade ever, worth billions of dollars and only Porter Stansberry can tell you about it--. The problem Stansberry faces is that each sucker is only good for one pump as anyone naive enough to believe this crap ain't got no money anyway. Now if Stansberry and Co. could really make 1,000 to 10,000% gains all the time and put $10,000 into one such GOLD SANDS each year, in five years they would be worth a billion dollars. Two more years they would be the richest men on earth. They obviously ain't and have to resort to pumps like NUS to scrape by a living bilking widows, orphans and tea-baggers.

Chart of the day is....

.......Mexico's Consumer Price Inflation (CPI), 2000 to 2010 measured monthly and indexed to 100 as at June 2002.

I was laying there in bed last night, wondering why you never seem to hear Mexicans complaining about inflation any longer. I mean, I remember all the Tequila episode and the fallout and everything else. So this morning I toddled off to the Mexico Cenbank site and found this dataset (in chart form here).

The answer seems to be that for sure there is some inflation in Mexico, but for one thing it's at moderate level and for another (and I'm guessing the most important), it's regular. That line just steadily moves up, doesn't make jolts to the upside or downside, holds no surprises for the people that it affects. It works like Prozac.

Brazil and the price of overconfidence

Mister Plá (for it is he)

Brazil's loss against Holland (or 'The Netherlands' if you like...you know which country I'm talking about anyway) has left a big dent in the country's footballing pride. It's also left a big dent in the pockets of its retail sector who, utterly confident of progressing to the final and winning the thing (again), have now been left rather overstocked with paraphernalia related to all things footy.

According to this report in O Globo today, Daniel Plá of Brazilian Getulio Vargas Foundation economics bureau says that unsold merchandise including team shirts, flags and those now infamous vuvuzelas amongst other items add up to a total of U$48m around the country. In Rio de Janeiro alone, unsold goods are worth U$4.8m.

Says Plá, "Retail outlets were expecting to sell a lot more green-and-yellow products in the two weeks that were left. Now it's very difficult to sell them, even with generalized 50% discounts on offer......Everybody expect Brazil to reach the final". He also noted that TV sales would suffer.

IKN sez: Y'see, I told you there's always a bright side :-)

A tribute to Diego Maradona

The IKN Weekly, out now

IKN61 has just been sent to subscribers. It has words, charts, tables and typos. Y'know, the usual mix.

There's always a bright side

At least I can concentrate on my work now.

Congratulations to Germany, who played quite superbly today. A well-deserved victory.

UPDATE: Just to share the very brief mail exchange this humble scribe had with his equally sad Argentine bestpal this evening (translated). Neither of us were in any mood for long mails:

Otto: Maradona's luck ran out. Germany far superior, and its defence shut down everything. It was like the defence of an NBA basketball team

Otto's pal: We were overwhelmed. No complaints. Tactics beat technique. Tevez and Messi bouncing off six defenders time and time again. There's no surprise. Germany were very practical, great defence and counter-attack. It's sad that football is going this way. In 20 years time, will football be like American Football or The Beautiful Game? We, the lovers of the beautiful game, are left we only Spain. It was hard for them against Paraguay but in the end the result was fair. I hope they go on to win it.

A room with a view (part 10)

This week, reader MR shows off the large San Pedro cactus he has in front of his window, somewhere in Peru.

He nailed the photo in full flower, rare days for a San Pedro. Looks like the neighbour is building, too.

Uruguay tonight

This for winning a quarterfinal match.



Carpe diem, Montevideo.

The Friday OT: Jimmy Cliff; I Can See Clearly Now

Dedicated to the Uruguay team, but my stars football really is the cruellest of games.

Never mind, it's only a game and there are more important things. Such as Jimmy's voice, which is a thing of beauty.

South of the Dumbasses (this week's coveted award)

Unsurprisingly, Oliver Stone's documentary/movie "South of the Border" (aka LatAm 101) has had brickbats thrown at it by the usual US media channels because the movie is lefty and they're all righty and we can't have people saying nice things in the English language about the Axis of Evo™ now, can we? For a good example of the blahblah, check this link for the ongoing spat between co-writer Mark Whitebread and some guy named Rohter who slagged the movie in the NYT using dubious evidence.

Now me personally, I don't care much about the movie nor what you gringos up there think of it. But it has given us a window into the deep knowledge your average US dumbass with a pen has of the region, so with a roll on the drums (brrrrrrrrrrrrrmmmm) step forward Kenneth Turan, the LA Times' film critic. In his meisterwerk, we read the following gem penned by Turan:

If you are interested in the fascinating events around Chavez's rise to power, you can see "The Revolution Will Not Be Televised," directed by two Irish filmmakers, Kim Bartley and Donnacha O'Briain, who were on the scene when the events happened.

His rise to power? WTF! Chávez had been Prez for four years when the 2002 coup happened!

BUT WAIT! THERE'S MORE! Try this one for size:

And if you care about the groundbreaking election that brought Morales to power in Ecuador, creating a situation Kirchner described as "for the first time in the region, the leaders look like the people they govern," the film to watch is Rachel Boynton's "Our Brand Is Crisis," which shows how American political consultants tried in vain to get Morales' opponent into office.

Daym an'darnit Jethro, here's me thinking that Evo Morales was President of Bolivia all this time. Oh yes indeedy, once again I'm fully reminded that taking seriously any opinion from a US media source regarding LatAm affairs is a very silly thing to do. The LA Times isn't a freakin' blog, people, these people got lawyers, fact checkers, sub-ed, editors.........

UPDATE: Reader 'J' writes in with another good observation:

"Very nice. Could also add that "Our Brand is Crisis" is actually about the 2002 election of Goni and not "how American political consultants tried in vain to get Morales' opponent into office."

Thanks J, spot on. Let's also make clear that Goni actually won that election, so that line about "trying in vain" is balderdash and nonsense, too.

And thusly Kenneth Turan, you win this week's coveted award. If ignorance truly is bliss, then you must be in Nirvana right now. All things considered it seems much wiser that in the future you simply
ps: it's a personal treat to get to use owly and the STFU photo in the same post

Trading Post (desordem não progride edition)

Dynasty Metals (DMM.to) down 5.4% at $3.50. We'll have news on this stock in IKN61.

Ventana Gold (VEN.to) down 4.5% at $7.59. Just how far can the Vancouver mob whack this down before the Toronto mob step in and buy it up? There's more than one type of football in this world and the object kicked around doesn't necessarily have to be spherical.

Pediment Gold (PEZ.to) down 7.6% at $1.10 and this is the kind of price that starts to become tempting, even in the current bearish atmosphere. We ran an updated fundies report on PEZ in IKN57 (June 13th) and the call was the wait and see if lower prices showed up. More thoughts on this one in IKN61, too.

Radius Gold (RDU.v) down 10% at $0.315. Guat's going on? Still as with nearly all the junior positions out there today, volumes are pitifully small so there shouldn't be too much written into the downmoves (even in the dogstocks). Everyone too busy watching the futbol, it seems.

futbol

Arrests in El Salvador

Here's a story worth following in the next few days. On June 30th, eight people in El Salvador were arrested in connection with the widely documented murders suffered by the local anti-mining lobby opposed to the Pacific Rim (PMU) (PMU.to) gold project. As the 'Voices From El Salvador' blog puts it:

"In discussing the issue, the police stated that this is a very complex and complicated issue. In our investigations into the violence we have found the same. The relationships between the victims, the perpetrators, Pacific Rim, the local mayors and diputados, and organized crime are very complex and require a very thorough investigation. We hope that these arrests are the beginning, and that the Salvadoran and international community continue their work to ensure justice in each case". Continues here

It will be more than interesting to find out whether or not the eight arrested this week have any direct connection with Pacific Rim and whether their statements implicate (or not) the company in the assassinations. Watch this space.

h/t tim

Keith Hulley, non-executive Chairman of Ecometals (EC.v), to resign his position

Following the news today that Mark Kesselman has resigned his director's position at Ecometals (EC.v) because he got caught inside trading, frontrunning bad news and late filing his scumball work.......

It has come to the Board's notice that on June 22nd one of its Directors, Mark Kesselman, received a Cease Trade Order from the British Columbia Securities Commission for failing to file insider reports in respect of changes in his beneficial ownership of the Company's securities within the prescribed time. The Company was provided yesterday with a copy of a Revocation order from the BCSC in respect of that Cease Trade Order consequent upon Mr Kesselman filing in the intervening time the required insider reports. As a result of the above, Mr Kesselman has offered his resignation as a Director of the Company which the Board has accepted.

......we here at IKN can only assume that Keith Robert Hulley, non-executive chairman of Ecometals will also tender his resignation immediately. As we mentioned back in February Hulley was caught doing exactly the same thing as Kesselman, namely inside trading, frontrunning bad news and late filing his scumball work. Here's an extract from that Feb 4th post:

"Yep that right: Between December 23rd and December 30th when the rest of you were gleefully buying EC.v and whacking it up to over a buck on the BS being vomited about Zarza, the man that knows more about this company than anybody else was selling. And selling to the tune of 252,400 shares for gross proceeds of $374,881...and seven cents. It's bad enough that the stock he sold is now worth $175k less than he did when he sold it, but to add insult to injury he sells it in the last week of 2009 and doesn't even bother about telling anyone, saving the late filing for a full two months after the fact (Feb 3rd) and thumbing his pig-greedy nose at the OSC into the bargain." continues here

This humble scribe further notes that not only did Hulley's actions directly contravene regulatory filings rules and regulations, but they also directly contravened Ecometals own rules as laid out in its 'Timely Disclosure, Confidentiality and Insider Trading Policy' document that you, dear reader, can find linked right here. This is the extract that explains all:

16. Insider Reports
16.1 An Insider of the Company is required to file an initial insider report within ten (10)
days of becoming an Insider and subsequent insider reports within ten (10) days
following any trade of securities of the Company

So now we have a clear policy at Ecometals of the board weeding out its bad seeds, following the rules of the OSC/BCSC and its own internal ethics standards, it can only be a matter of hours before Hulley does the right thing and resigns. DYODD.

Chart of the day is...

...gold, daily candles.
PS: We're all gonna die, y'know.

downtime

As the market is pretty stinky today, your author has no plans at all to either buy or sell anything and there is only limited pleasure that can be derived from watching Nadagold get dumped, your humble scribe is going to take his book (The Anatomy of Fascism by Robert Paxton....right now Canadians in particular might be interested in picking up this excellent book on the subject), hightail it to his fave fish restaurant, sit down, eat well, read well and probably drink a few beers too.

Hasta mañana, cumpas.

What we have learned this year about Rene Marion, President and CEO of Gammon Gold (GRS) (GAM.to)

1) He's an amazingly lucky seller, managing to get rid of nearly half his personal holding of Gammon Gold (GAM.to) (GRS) shares just before a really bad YE report that saw the share price dump badly.

2) He's a crap buyer. Those 50,000 shares he's recently bought back cost him $312,377. With the PPS right now at U$5.10 (and dropping fast), that puts the dude over $42,000 in the hole (forex adjusted, of course).

(click to enlarge)

Y'see, that's what happens when mediocrity doesn't have the unfair advantage of rock solid inside information on its side.

So here's the scorecard on Rene Marion:

• Couldn't organize a piss-up in a brewery, let alone run a mine at a profit
• Has no idea how to count mineral reserves properly
• Has the labour relations skills of Josef Stalin
• Gets rich on front-running inside information
• Can't trade the market for toffee

Jeesh, they'll employ anyone these days....

Chart of the day is...

...Peru exports by month, 2006 to present.

DoubleDip is not just an ice-cream flavour or a ride at the theme park.