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The Uck! factor aside, the case was also an illuminating look at security measures inside the Mint, the building on Sussex Drive that produces hundreds of millions of gold coins annually for the federal Crown corporation.... One day a teller became suspicious at the size and number of Ottawa Gold Buyers cheques being deposited and Lawrence’s request to wire money out of the country. She then noticed on his account profile that he worked at the Mint. The first red flag was up.

Iran may have received an additional $33.6 billion in secret cash and gold payments facilitated by the Obama administration between 2014 and 2016, according to testimony provided before Congress by an expert on last summer’s nuclear agreement with Iran. Between January 2014 and July 2015, when the Obama administration was hammering out the final details of the nuclear accord, Iran was paid $700 million every month from funds that had previously been frozen by U.S. sanctions. A total of $11.9 billion was ultimately paid to Iran, but the details surrounding these payments remain shrouded in mystery, according to Mark Dubowitz,...

A (mostly) daily posting for those interested in history and the day to day news, politics and culture of a bygone world; the full edition of the New York Tribune from today's date in 1896 (digitized).

A (mostly) daily posting for those interested in history and the day to day news, politics and culture of a bygone world; the full edition of the New York Tribune from today's date in 1896 (digitized).

"Striking gold" is mainly a term to express when someone gets really lucky nowadays, but by golly, someone has actually done it. A 145-ounce gold nugget has been reportedly found in Victoria, Australia by a real life prospector and could be worth more than A$250,000 ($190,710) when it goes to auction. The big 'ol nugget has been named "Friday's Joy" on account of the day it was found.

When World War I began, many analysts believed that the international gold standard would keep the war short. A war of attrition was not thought to be possible because the disciplining effects of the gold standard — capital flight and gold outflow — were supposed to restrain the ability of states to mobilize resources in times of war. As many believed at the time, states under the gold standard would quickly run out of money to pay for soldiers and resources. No one ever imagined that the war would last four long years and that most countries would stop using...

RIO DE JANEIRO — Geno Auriemma and Diana Taurasi shared a long, emotional embrace. Mission accomplished. The dominant U.S. women's basketball team did what was expected, winning a sixth consecutive Olympic gold medal and doing it in impressive fashion. In yet another rout, the U.S. dismantled Spain 101-72 on Saturday.

Hello all, I was gifted a couple gold coins a few years ago -- just basic, 1 oz American Eagle coins, no special edition or date or anything like that. I kind of forgot I had them, but recently decided to sell one of them off to finance my conspicuous consumption of .22 ammo, and came a bit of a cropper, as our British cousins might put it. Simply put, aside from selling the thing at a pawn shop for pennies on the dollar, how are you supposed to sell the damn thing? What research I've done seems to indicate...

Michelle Carter won the shot put gold medal Friday night at the Rio 2016 Olympic Games 32 years after her father, Michael, took the silver in the same event at the Los Angeles 1984 Games. "Of course, I can't wait until I get the medal and I can walk around the house and say 'Daddy, I got you,'" said Carter, who will receive her gold medal in a victory ceremony Saturday.

[Full title: ‘A high-stakes dispute over ten pieces of gold’: Court reclaims priceless Double Eagle coins for U.S. government] When the coins were struck in 1933, the United States Mint must have understood the golden pieces were the last of a dying breed. What the minters could not have foreseen was the saga of thievery and legal limbo that would unfold over the next 90 years, centered on 10 of the gold coins that bore Lady Liberty on the front and a soaring eagle on the reverse. At the time they were minted, the gold pieces had a face value...

A (mostly) daily posting for those interested in history and the day to day news, politics and culture of a bygone world. The full edition of the New York Tribune from Tuesday July 21, 1896 (digitized). Some other headlines from today's paper... VENEZUELA MAKES RELY: An Elaborate Brief Filed with the Boundary Commission| THREATS OF LYNCHING: A Brooklyn Prisoner Kept in Police Station for Protection| LOUD THREATS OF BOLTING - WAR CLOUDS OVER ST. LOUIS: Populists Divided Over Bryan Into Hostile Camps

As the Clinton-led State Department dragged its feet against Boko Haram, Clinton Foundation donors made millions from Nigerian oil fields The attacks on Jan. 20, 2012, began not so much as an explosion but as an earthquake. ....In coordinated bombings at 23 separate locations in the city of Kano, including police headquarters and military barracks, the group left one of Africa’s largest cities in disarray and panic. The January attacks killed more than 185 people—Africa’s worst terrorism since the 1998 al-Qaeda attacks on U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania. ...Boko Haram often showed up better equipped than the Nigerian military...prominently...

ISIS is now issuing its own currency referred to as the ‘Golden Dinar,’ with engravings bearing the words “Islamic State.” The coins, currently being released in limited quantity, are to primarily be used by traders in the oil industry in areas under Islamic State control, according to reports on jihadi online forums. Activists in Deir ez-Zor, Syria reported oil traders have been ordered to use the new Dinar when purchasing from ISIS-held oil fields. Reports from the Iraqi city of Mosul have indicated the Golden Dinar is being introduced to the currency market as part of a serious attempt to...

Unearthed: the humble origins of world diplomacy By David Keys, Archaeology Correspondent 19 January 2003 Archaeologists have discovered evidence of an invasion of the Middle East by one of the world's first superpowers, which destroyed much of the region 33 centuries ago. Under the ruins of a 3,800-year-old royal palace in western Syria they have found part of an ancient diplomatic and administrative library, the most important archaeological discovery of its kind for more than 20 years. Accounts on clay tablets describe the region's conquest by one of the Bronze Age's superpowers, the Hittite Empire, in 1340BC. This helped to...

Tyler Durden Jul 3, 2016 10:50 PM Update: Silver just exploded above $21 - up almost 8% - its biggest single day surge since September 2013. Silver is limit up on SHFE as Gold is also surging back towards Brexit highs near $1360... China's CFETS Renminbi basket just hit a record low..(snip)Lots of charts...click on link(snip)

George Soros may be getting rich on an implosion in British markets—again. The landmark vote in the U.K. to leave the European Union has rocked global markets, sending the British pound GBPUSD, -7.3484% to its lowest level in more than 30 years. Futures for the Dow Jones Industrial Average DJIA, -2.27% plunged as much as 700 points at one point and Europe’s benchmark stock-index SXXP, -6.10% was facing its worst one-day plunge since 1987. It is precisely the scenario Soros, writing in Britain’s Guardian newspaper last week, warned of. The global financial carnage and Friday’s carnage could be adding to...

It may seem unusual that an economist would talk about culture. Usually, we talk about prices and production, quantities produced, employment, the structure of production, scarce resources, and entrepreneurship. But there are certain things that economists can say about the culture, and more precisely, that economists can say about the transformation of the culture. So what is culture? Well, to put it simply, it is the way we do things. This can include the way we eat — whether or not we dine with family members on a regular basis, for example — how we sleep, and how we use...

Fairfax Global Markets CEO Paul Dietrich on the potential market implications of a British exit from the European Union, the state of the U.S. economy and the 2016 presidential race.

On June 23, the voters of Great Britain will decide whether or not to leave the European Union (EU), which Britain joined in the early 1970s. With a week until the decision is due, the forces of “Leave the EU” have increased sharply over the “Remain” vote. This has caused a collapse in the British pound in anticipation of the vote. This has also caused many Britons to exchange their weak pound sterling for gold. One leading British gold dealer said that the U.K. is outstripping all other regions for demand growth this month, up 59% in June. Their head...

It wasn’t so long ago that some of the more famous investor gurus were shrugging off gold as nothing more than shiny trinkets with no investment value. They were wrong. This safe haven is back, the recovery is clear, and there have been some very big changes of heart. The biggest gold producers in the world have seen their share prices double this year. Not only are gold prices soaring, but producers are cutting costs and slimming down debt as they pave the way for gold to return to the top of the favored commodities list. Even though gold dropped...

Gold output across the globe hit an all-time high in 2015, climbing 1.8 percent to 3,211 tonnes. Much of this growth was led by Mexico, whose output increased double digits (18 percent) from 112 tonnes in 2014 to 133 tonnes last year. Indonesia grew 20 percent, Kazakhstan 29 percent. This year, global production is expected to level out as project development budgets were slashed during the three-year gold bear market. But with gold prices rebounding, miners are in a good position to be much more profitable. Below, explore and discover the world’s top 10 gold producing mines.

Today, June 5th, is the anniversary of the birth of John Maynard Keynes, once upon a time the great foe of the gold standard. Today also, coincidentally, happens to be the anniversary of the date celebrated of FDR’s “taking America off the gold standard.” These events are not mere historical curios. The current presidential campaign, and underlying political climate, shows we are finally, maybe definitively, emerging from the academic economists’ anathema on the gold standard... ...Trump, the presumptive GOP presidential nominee, is on record as strongly appreciating the gold standard... ...The “interwar gold standard” in fact was a barbarous relic....

Prior to the election of AmericaÂ’s longest serving socialist president, our money was backed by gold. Anyone holding our paper currency could demand to exchange it for gold at a set price. In 1913, the gold standard was officially made part of the Federal Reserve and the price of gold was fixed at $20.67 per ounce. The same law mandated that the Federal Reserve kept enough gold on hand to equal 40% of the currency issued at the time.On March 4, 1933, Franklin Delano Roosevelt was sworn into office for the first time. The day after his inauguration, Roosevelt closed...

Last year Texas Governor Gregg Abbott signed HB 483, allowing the creation of the Texas Gold Depository. “With the passage of this bill, the Texas Bullion Depository will become the first state-level facility of its kind in the nation, increasing the security and stability of our gold reserves and keeping taxpayer funds from leaving Texas to pay for fees to store gold in facilities outside our state,” he said last June. This gold bank would allow Texas to recover the gold that it has stored in New York vaults, and give Texan citizens and institutions a chance to store their...

Here is just ONE example, although its a very good example, of why Hillary should be convicted of failing to secure CONFIDENTIAL government foreign-affairs documents... This one is from Sid Blumenthal to Hillary on April 2, 2010. Clearly from the subject matter, it does not belong on any unsecured computer system. It hints at the upcoming killing by the US, France, and NATO of Mohamar Qadaffi, and it even implys WHY this has to be done: Because Qadaffi is creating a 7-billion dollar fund of gold-backed dinars, which will be the only currency allowed for middle-east oil purchases. The message...

Venezuela’s gold reserves have plunged to their lowest level on record after it sold $1.7 billion of the precious metal in the first quarter of the year to repay debts. The country is grappling with an economic crisis that has left it struggling to feed its population.

Scientists have been searching for the origin of some of the most precious metals on Earth - including gold, silver, and platinum - for almost six decades. And now we might finally have the answer. Heavy, and often valuable elements like these are called r-process elements, and they require an incredible amount of energy to produce. So far, no one's been able to explain how they came to exist in the Universe. But the discovery that an ancient dwarf galaxy called Reticulum II - about 98,000 light-years from Earth - has stars that contain a "whopping" amount of these metals...

MIAMI -- For the second time, Venezuela has failed to pay mining company Gold Reserve the $750 million it has been awarded for Venezuela's expropriation of its gold mining operation in 2007.

'King of clubs' being sheltered by Syrian army By Damien Mcelroy in Damascus (Filed: 11/05/2003) The king of clubs from America's card deck of most wanted Iraqis is being sheltered at a military base in the Syrian capital Damascus, according to a Gulf diplomat. Izzat Ibrahim al-Douri, a former vice-president of Iraq and one of Saddam Hussein's closest henchmen, is said to be under the protection of Syria's Republican Guard in the decrepit military base near the airport. He is among thousands of regime figures who are believed to have slipped into Syria before Damascus sealed the border. Izzat had...

BEYDA, Libya—Underneath a bank in this eastern coastal city, a vault holds a trove of gold and silver coins worth $184 million. It belongs to the central bank, which could use the money to alleviate a crippling cash shortage. The pile, however, presents some problems. The coins are locked away with a five-number code that central bankers in this part of the country don’t have. A rival government in Tripoli, which has effective control over the bank system, won’t hand over the digits and has expressed concern the money could fund armed militias opposed to its rule. To make things...

Back in February, when we commented on the unprecedented hyperinflation about the be unleashed in the Latin American country whose president just announced that he would expand the "weekend" for public workers to 5 days...... we joked that it is unclear just where the country will find all the paper banknotes it needs for all its new physical currency. After all, central-bank data shows Venezuela more than doubled the supply of 100-, 50- and 2-bolivar notes in 2015 as it doubled monetary liquidity including bank deposits. Supply has grown even as Venezuela has fewer U.S. dollars to support new...

<p>Two treasure hunters who claim to have found the last resting place of a German military train believed be to laden gold are set to begin digging on the site despite widespread scepticism over their claim.</p> <p>Piotr Koper and Andreas Richter, the two treasure hunters, sparked international attention and a mini gold rush last summer when they claimed to have found the train in a secret siding beside a railway line near the southern Polish town of Walbrzych.</p>

Blood Money Former Exec: American Company Paid Terrorist Group to Protect Overseas Interests By Brian Ross and Rhonda Schwartz April 16 — Before his company sent him overseas, Allan Laird, a former Denver-based mining executive, had never heard of Abu Sayyaf. As Laird quickly learned when he arrived in the Philippines, Abu Sayyaf is one of the world's most-feared terrorist organizations, closely connected to Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda network. Laird said he also soon discovered the company for whom he formerly worked, Echo Bay, was regularly paying Abu Sayyaf and other terror groups in the Philippines in exchange for...

April 27, 2016 Sol_Palha We are still not convinced that Gold is fully out of the woods. Peter Schiff is busy telling everyone that it was a bad idea to have sold Gold in 2011, we beg to differ for the trend indicates otherwise, and so does the price of Gold. He is coming out with scary scenarios though they are not as grandiose as James Sinclair's scenario that calls for Gold to move to $50,000 an ounce. Even, when we dream we find it hard to envision such a price, so it is interesting that he can come up...

Chief editor of Grant's Interest Rate Observer debunks negative interest rates, banning cash, and helicopter money. ... Epoch Times spoke to Mr. Grant about the spotty track record of central bankers, deflation, gold and the gold standard, as well as negative interest rates and a ban on cash. A negative interest rate is not only a tax on saving, it is the destruction of saving. ... Negative interest rates are an attempt to tax thrift. The idea of earning dollar bills and putting those dollar bills in a bank and having them accumulate over time, the accumulation of which is...

The Texan senator’s gold standard policy is a terrible idea with a long history. But if you run a business, are employed by one, care about the stability of the financial system, or would prefer that the U.S. economy not be needlessly thrown into disarray — a group that seems like a pretty broad coalition of voters — Cruz’s economic policy is not OK. He told CNBC on Friday that he wants to push America back to the gold standard. This is a hare-brained policy that no other country uses and not a single surveyed economist thinks is a good...

In a deal that defies currently accepted norms, Donald Trump has rented out the 50th floor of the Trump Building at 40 Wall Street to American Precious Metals Exchange (APMEX) and has allowed the company to pay the security deposit in gold.Trump agreed to accept three 32-ounce bars of gold in lieu of the cash security deposit. As of this writing, gold was trading at $1227.40 per ounce, making the 96 ounces of gold that Trump is holding worth $117,830.40. That should be more than sufficient to cover the security deposit for the 10-year rental.The deal is a win-win situation...

For the first few months of 1980, the silver market had been slipping as newly enacted rules began tightening their grip on the Hunt Brothers’ silver scheme. On March 27 (known as “Silver Thursday”), silver opened at $15.80 and closed at $10.80 as the Hunt Brothers reportedly initiated a massive sell-off of silver and contracts to meet their obligations. Commodities and the futures market crashed on these reports, but rallied somewhat, bringing silver to $12 an ounce within a few days. But the futures contracts owned by the Hunts were predicated on silver at $35 an ounce. What had been...

The lords of finance are losing their touch. Institutions which dragged the world from its worst depression since the early 20th century are finally seeing their magic desert them, if conventional wisdom is to be believed. Eight years on the from the Great Recession, voices as authoritative as the International Monetary Fund and the Bank of International Settlements - dubbed the 'central bank of central banks' - have called time on the era of extraordinary monetary policy. Having hoovered up $12.3 trillion (£8.5 trillion) in financial assets and carried out 637 interest rate cuts since 2008, central banks have been stunned...

Canada, home to some of the world’s largest gold-mining companies, recently announced that it had effectively liquidated all of the country’s holdings of the shiny metal and is moving to what a government spokesperson described as “easily tradable” assets. It has been a long process. Canada held 1,088 tons of gold in 1955. By 2000, it was down to 46 tons. Today, just 77 ounces remain. This puts Canada in last place in the most up-to-date compilation of data on gold reserves compiled by an industry group, the World Gold Council. In the Council rankings, Canada is now in last...

Laurie Rimon spotted a gleam while on a hike in northern Israel with several friends. It turned out to be a gold coin so unusual, Israeli archaeologists say there is only one other one with the same symbols in the world. "It's extremely exciting," said Dr. Donald Ariel, an expert with the Israel Antiquities Authority, in comments released by the agency, which says the coin was struck by Roman Emperor Trajan in the year 107. "His gold coins are extremely rare." One side of the gold disc shows an image of Augustus, the founder of the Roman Empire more than...

BlackRock's Gold ETF (IAU) has seen fund inflows every day in 2016 (no outflows at all) and with the stock trading above its NAV for most of the year, the world's largest asset manager has made a significant decision: •*BLACKROCK SAYS ISSUANCE OF GOLD TRUST SHARES SUSPENDED• *BLACKROCK SAYS SUSPENSION DUE TO DEMAND FOR GOLD ... It appears the huge demand for physical gold (and lack of supply) is finally catching up with the manipulation of paper prices. If this is anything other than a brief technical suspension, it could well unleash panic-buying as we already pointed out - there...

Tyler Durden March 3, 2016One month ago, when looking at the latest Canadian official international reserves, we noticed something strange: Canada had sold nearly half of its gold reserves in one month. According to the February data, total Canadian gold reserves stood at 1.7 tonnes. That was just 0.1 per cent of the country’s total reserves, which also include foreign currency deposits and bonds. As we noted, the decision to sell came from Finance Minister Bill Morneau’s office. “Canada’s gold reserves belong to the Government of Canada, and are held under the name of the Minister of Finance,” explained a...

Venezuela sent $1.3 billion worth of gold bars to Switzerland in mid-January, according to data from the Swiss Federal Customs Administration. That gold was shipped out just weeks before two big debt payments due this month, totaling $2.3 billion. On Friday alone, Venezuela has to pay bondholders $1.5 billion. Venezuela is running out of cash and many experts believe there's a high chance it will default by this fall when a string of big debt payments are due. "It's a question of when Venezuela will default, not if," says Russ Dallen, managing partner at LatInvest, a firm that invests in...

Germany's financial regulator has said it won't take further action against the country's largest bank over alleged interest rate rigging and precious metals price fixing. The moves takes the spotlight off a former boss. The watchdog, known as Bafin, announced on Thursday it had ended several major special audits against Deutsche Bank. [...] Deutsche Bank paid $2.5 billion (2.26 billion euros) in fines in April last year after investigations on manipulating interest rates. The bank was also probed for its role in rigging prices of gold, silver, platinum and palladium. It also recorded a multibillion-euro loss for 2015. Bafin officials...

A "mystery" gold mount found in a Norfolk field has provided "another piece of the jigsaw" for historians looking for Anglo-Saxon settlements. The item was found near Fakenham and is possibly from a sword grip, but experts say it has differences to similar finds. Dr Andrew Rogerson, county archaeologist, said: "It's a fragment, but there's no context for it." No evidence of dwellings has ever been found in the village. The Portable Antiquities Scheme, which is in the process of valuing the item, said it was "similar to sword-grip mounts from the Sutton Hoo ship burial and the Staffordshire Hoard"....

The U.S. Secretary of Defense is in Belgium holding meetings with anti-ISIS coalition partners.With that totally under control, President Obama is doing his thing today: Mostly a fundraising day for Pres Obama in CA. Three for the DNC and one for the @dscc.ALso tapes appearance today on @TheEllenShow.— Mark Knoller (@markknoller) February 11, 2016 Today's Dem fundraisers are the first for Pres Obama in 2016. He did 35 fundraisers last year and 459 fundraisers since taking office.— Mark Knoller (@markknoller) February 11, 2016 The @dscc fundraiser is closed to press coverage, the 3 DNC events are pen & pad only,...

The stock market is having a horrible time so far in 2016, with the S&P 500 down more than 9%. Gold, on the other hand, is up nearly 10% year-to-date and hit a four-month high of just under $1200 per ounce on Monday before dipping 0.7% Tuesday to $1189.30. It's a bit of a cliche to say that people turn to gold in times of uncertainty: Sometimes that works, sometimes it doesn't. Gold did phenomenally well from 2000-2011 but really suffered after hitting nearly $2000 per ounce in 2011. From 2011 to 2015, the yellow metal pretty much fell in...

China's government doesn' share exact figures, but the vast majority of gold heading into mainland China passes through Hong Kong, which does make its records public. Gold imports to China have surged over 700% since 2010, according to the latest data from Hong Kong. Exactly what China is doing with all that gold remains somewhat of a mystery. The increasingly wealthy Chinese are buying, but that doesn'txplain all the jump in demand. The government says its gold reserves have grown only a little in recent years. Experts question whether China is telling the whole truth. "hina has a lot more...

Echoing the recent sentiments of Steve Forbes, this week Republican presidential contender Ted Cruz told a group in New Hampshire: "Money is ... a unit of measurement. So, the reason why we see these rapid oscillations in commodities markets, it's because of unstable currencies. And it's why I think we should look at going toward rules-based money supply, ideally tied to gold, so you have stability." Perhaps this will trigger another flood of disagreement in the mainstream press, such as the recent New York Times item which reported that 40 out of 40 "leading economists" said that a gold standard...