from: http://www.aci.net/kalliste/ Click Here: <A HREF="http://www.aci.net/kalliste/">The Home Page of J. Orlin Grabbe</A> ----- Gold Market GoldAvenue Attempts to Boost Gold Prices Buy gold on the Worldwide Web. J.P. Morgan, the investment bank, and two of the gold sector's leading companies are starting an internet site selling "all things gold" in an attempt to boost the flagging price. The site, to be called GoldAvenue, is backed by South Africa's AngloGold, the world's largest gold miner, and Swiss-based PAMP, the world's largest private gold refiner. The three planned to sign an agreement today to form a joint venture, which was expected to go online in the second half of this year. The three companies are putting up $20m in initial capital for GoldAvenue's first year. The organisers said the web site would eventually be a one-stop shop for gold investors and merchants although its initial focus will be on selling gold to retail customers. Bobby Godsell, AngloGold chief executive, said GoldAvenue was an attempt to find new gold buyers now that central banks have become sellers. Market conditions deteriorated to the point last year that European central banks agreed in September to cap their gold sales during the next five years. "We have been arguing that if the gold industry is going to take charge of its destiny, it's going to have to go out and find a customer base directly," Mr Godsell said. To that end, GoldAvenue will sell everything from gold watches and chains to individual grams of the metal. For investors, the minimum balance will be only $50. "We want to be all things gold," said Mehdi Barkhordar, GoldAvenue's chief executive and managing director of PAMP. "When you think of gold, you think of us." The organisers are looking to target the US market first, before moving into emerging markets, where gold remains a favoured investment. "The problem in western markets is gold investments are inaccessible," Godsell said. "Western markets, we think, have been underdeveloped." The organisers hope the site would eventually feature business-to-business gold trading. However, Mr Barkhordar said the partners had no timetable for such trading and were concentrating on getting the retail operation started before the Christmas season. William Winters, head of J.P. Morgan's markets arms, said the bank would provide trading capabilities and vault services to the joint venture. GoldAvenue is the latest in a series of internet ventures that J.P. Morgan has announced in recent months, most of them looking to commercialise existing businesses. The Financial Times, April 11, 2000 US Politics Criminal Indictment of Clinton Still Possible Don't go off the deep end, Mr. Chump President. Independent counsel Robert W. Ray considers the investigation of President Clinton's relationship with Monica S. Lewinsky an "open" matter and is actively considering seeking an indictment against the president after he leaves office next January. Rather than winding down the independent counsel's office after the departure of Kenneth W. Starr and Clinton's impeachment trial, Ray recently hired six new lawyers with significant prosecutorial and other experience, as well as one investigator, and has an FBI agent detailed to his staff. In addition, Ray has projected spending $3.5 million over the next six months, an increase over the $3.1 million spent during the past half-year. Among the criminal charges being weighed against Clinton in the Lewinsky matter are perjury, obstruction of justice, making false statements, and conspiracy to commit those crimes when he was questioned under oath about his relationship with the former White House intern. "It is an open investigation," Ray said in an interview yesterday. "There is a principle to be vindicated, and that principle is that no person is above the law, even the president of the United States. That is what we have been charged with doing." Ray previously has said he would defer any decision about whether to indict Clinton until after the November elections. But the new revelations about the aggressiveness of the probe indicate that this is not an academic exercise and that an indictment of the president is under serious consideration. Clinton's private attorney, David E. Kendall, declined to comment. Reid Weingarten, a former senior trial attorney in the Justice Department's public integrity section and a Washington defense lawyer, said yesterday that the public would be surprised by the direction of Ray's investigation. "I believe the great majority of Americans fervently wish that this matter was behind them and they will be chagrined by the news," Weingarten said. "I, however, have a great deal of experience with independent counsels, and I am not the least bit surprised that this one, like so many others, has great difficulty in closing the book." In addition to examining Clinton's testimony about Lewinsky, Ray's investigation involves allegations that Clinton made false statements about his relationship with Kathleen E. Willey, and that others subsequently sought improperly to silence her. Ray, 40, does not intend to make a decision about whether to indict Clinton until after the president is out of office next January, because the indictment of a sitting president would be subject to constitutional challenges that would go on for years. Under the independent counsel law, Ray, who joined the office about a year ago and has been serving as independent counsel for six months, is required to act in a speedy manner. "By waiting, I am being prompt," Ray said yesterday. Ray's budget has increased in part because of a federal pay increase. In addition, his projected contracting expenses increased by nearly $200,000 because many experienced prosecutors involved in the Lewinsky matter, who left the independent counsel's office over the past year, are likely to be retained on a contractual basis to provide guidance. Ray said he recently hired seven new officials to replace people who departed. Overall, the independent counsel's office has 44 employees, including lawyers, investigators and support staff, 10 fewer than it did one year ago. "There is a process, and a prosecutorial judgment has to be made," Ray said. "That responsibility is to determine whether a crime was committed and, if so, whether it is appropriate to" seek an indictment. "Even with regard to the president of the United States, that process should be followed and that is what I intend to do." In his impeachment referral to Congress, Starr said he believed there was "substantial and credible information" that Clinton lied under oath, both before the grand jury and in his deposition in the Paula Jones civil lawsuit, and that he obstructed justice in trying to cover up his affair with Lewinsky. Starr suggested to the House Judiciary Committee in November 1998 that he had not reached a conclusion on the tougher question of whether the evidence against Clinton was enough that a "fair-minded jury would convict based on these facts, with the witnesses . . . as we find them, beyond a reasonable doubt." The House voted to impeach Clinton on charges of perjury and obstruction of justice, but the Senate voted not to remove him from office. Last year, a federal judge in Arkansas ordered Clinton to pay nearly $90,000 to Paula Jones's legal team for giving false testimony about his relationship with Lewinsky, marking the first time that a sitting president has been punished for contempt of court. It is too soon to determine whether the judge's actions would be admissible in a criminal trial or considered too prejudicial to present to a jury. Ray said his hiring has been driven by the departures of key lawyers and the need to have a team equipped to carry out the mandate under the independent counsel law to review the allegations against the president. "Part of my job is to hire a sufficient number of people to responsibly and fairly conduct this investigation," Ray said. "We've had eight people leave since I became independent counsel . . . and it is important to have a fully staffed office." Ray, who recently announced that he had completed an investigation into the White House's improper handling of FBI files, is likely to issue final reports this summer about the White House travel office firings and by fall about the Clintons' Whitewater investment. Ray's office will not seek indictments in either case, meaning Hillary Rodham Clinton's Senate campaign in New York will not be tarnished by criminal charges. But depending on the timing of Ray's reports, which he submits to a special three-judge panel, and the timing of their public release by the judges, the Senate race still could be influenced by information in the reports. If the Whitewater report is not ready for release in September, the independent counsel's office will wait until after the election, avoiding allegations of an "October surprise." The Washington Post, April 11, 2000 ----- Aloha, He'Ping, Om, Shalom, Salaam. Em Hotep, Peace Be, All My Relations. Omnia Bona Bonis, Adieu, Adios, Aloha. Amen. 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