-Caveat Lector- from: http://www.aci.net/kalliste/ Click Here: <A HREF="http://www.aci.net/kalliste/">The Home Page of J. Orlin Grabbe</A> ----- Today's Lesson from Winesburg, Ohio by Sherwood Anderson That began another phase of Enoch's life. He began to play at a new game. For a while he was very proud of himself in the role of producing citizen of the world. He dismissed the essence of things and played with realities. In the fall he voted at an election and he had a newspaper thrown on his porch each morning. When in the evening he came home from work he got off a streetcar and walked sedately along behind some business man, striving to look very substantial and important. As a payer of taxes he thought he should post himself on how things are run. "I'm getting to be of some moment, a real part of things, of the state and the city and all that," he told himself with an amusing miniature air of dignity. Once, coming home from Philadelphia, he had a discussion with a man met on a train. Enoch talked about the advisability of the government's owning and operating the railroads and the man gave him a cigar. It was Enoch's notion that such a move on the part of government would be a good thing, and he grew quite excited as he talked. "I gave him something to think about, that fellow," he muttered to himself as he climbed the stairs to his Brooklyn apartment. ===== US Politics Buchanan Joins Reform Party Will ex-Pres George Bush try to have him assassinated?. WASHINGTON - Calling for a ''new patriotism'' and a turning away from foreign involvements, the conservative commentator Patrick Buchanan quit the Republican Party on Monday and announced that he would seek the presidential nomination of the independent Reform Party. The move, which had been expected, raises at least the possibility that a third-party candidate could shift the dynamics of the 2000 election. It also foreshadows a vigorous, colorful and possibly deeply divisive contest for the party's nomination. On Sunday, the wealthy New York developer Donald Trump said that he was leaving the Republican Party to consider a Reform Party run for the presidency. Mr. Trump was harshly critical of Mr. Buchanan, calling him ''a Hitler lover'' and a member of the ''crazy right.'' Mr. Buchanan's move sent a small stab of concern into the hearts of some mainstream Republicans. They fear that Mr. Buchanan, if he gains the Reform nomination, could take enough Republicans with him in the 2000 election to deprive the party's likely candidate, Governor George Bush of Texas, of the presidency just as they believe the Reform candidate Ross Perot did to Mr. Bush's father in 1992. But one Republican candidate, Senator John McCain of Arizona, suggested that Mr. Buchanan would not be missed. Mr. Buchanan told listeners at a hotel in suburban Virginia that his decision to leave the Republican Party ''was not made without anguish and regret.'' Paying homage to his conservative mentors, he said that he would ''never regret my nine years of service to Richard Nixon'' or his work as a speechwriter for President Ronald Reagan. But he said that the party of Mr. Nixon and Mr. Reagan had lost its conservative mission and character. ''Today, candor compels us to admit that our vaunted two-party system is a snare and a delusion, a fraud upon the nation,'' he said. ''Our two parties have become nothing but two wings on the same bird of prey.'' The announcement Monday injects what Buchanan critics say is a xenophobic brand of populism and isolationism into a presidential contest so far dominated by even-handed centrists like Mr. Bush and Vice President Al Gore. Mr. Buchanan, whose clear-spoken and punchy defenses of conservatism have made him a standby on political talk shows, has a small but faithful following among Republicans. Polls now place him in the low single digits among possible candidates. But in the 1992 campaign, he took 37 percent of the vote in the New Hampshire primary, and four years later, he edged out the Republican front-runner, Bob Dole, in that conservative state. But his brand of populism, some analysts say, is most effective in times of economic difficulty. Whether it will have much impact this time remains unclear. As Mr. Buchanan made clear before a boisterous crowd of supporters in Falls Church, Virginia, he will use the campaign to trumpet his signature issues: isolationism, trade protectionism, strong opposition to abortion, and a shift of government power and spending from Washington to cities and states. Mr. Buchanan said that the country desperately needed moral leadership and a return to old values. ''Neither party,'' he said, ''fights with conviction and courage to rescue God's country from the cultural and moral pit into which she has fallen.'' Instead, he said, ''both parties seek out the hollow men, the malleable men'' who would protect the interests of wealthy corporate backers, whom he called ''the money boys and the Beltway elites.'' He promised an unapologetic America-first policy of isolationism and retrenchment. ''I will never send an American army to fight in a foreign war unless our country is attacked or our vital interests are imperiled,'' he said. ''We will bring our soldiers home where they belong.'' Mr. Buchanan promised to ''phase out foreign aid'' and use the savings to solve domestic problems. He threatened to annul the United Nations' lease on its property in New York if the organization insisted on U.S. payment of back dues; said that all Americans should learn English; vowed to end affirmative action policies intended to help racial and ethnic minorities get jobs or promotions; and promised a sharp scaling back of government. He promised to cut taxes to historically low levels, saying the burden should be borne instead by a ''global, transnational elite.'' He also proposed a ''time-out'' on legal immigration. If Mr. Buchanan wins the Reform nomination, he will immediately gain one decided advantage: the $12.6 million in federal matching campaign funds for the party's nominee. International Herald Tribune, October 26, 1999 Yugoslavia US Embargo Aids Milosevic Who cares? What do the Yugoslavian people have to do with it? BELGRADE - Serbia's political opposition urged the United States Monday to remove sanctions against Yugoslavia, warning that punitive measures such as an embargo on heating oil were harming ordinary citizens and helping to entrench President Slobodan Milosevic in power. The appeal, delivered during two days of meetings in Budapest with the U.S. special Balkans envoy, James Dobbins, sought to persuade the Americans that the broad range of economic sanctions imposed by the Western allies were actually serving Mr. Milosevic's purposes by allowing him to blame the outside world for the hardships faced by 10 million Serbs. France, Germany and other European Union countries support the idea of removing a ban on commercial air travel and restoring food, medical and fuel supplies - provided that ''targeted sanctions'' aimed at Mr. Milosevic and his cronies are sustained. A list of those Serbs linked to the Yugoslav ruling clique who are banned from getting visas to nearly all Western nations may soon be doubled in size to more than 600 people. But the United States, fearful that Mr. Milosevic would use any opening to pry apart the united Western front against him, has refused to go along with any revision that could be construed as softening the sanctions. U.S. officials say they are convinced that, given the venomous personal rivalries among Serbian opposition leaders, the only hope of ousting Mr. Milosevic may lie with a massive popular uprising caused by severe deprivation ''We don't really understand why the Americans are so insistent on these sanctions,'' said Milan Protic, a leader in the opposition bloc known as Alliance for Change. ''There is a serious danger they will backfire by making it a lot easier for Milosevic to stay in power.'' Serbian opposition groups want the immediate resumption of commercial air travel connections to Belgrade and basic humanitarian aid, especially fuel oil. They say that unless Serbian civilians receive urgent relief from the allies, Mr. Milosevic will continue to stir up public resentment against the West - especially now that Russia, despite its own economic difficulties, has started natural gas deliveries with the approach of winter. ''The consistent position of all the opposition of Yugoslavia is that the sanctions really are not removing Milosevic,'' said the former Prime Minister Milan Panic. ''The humanitarian suffering of people cannot ever justify economic sanctions. Mr. Milosevic must be removed by some other means.'' Mr. Panic said Yugoslavia also needed ''massive assistance'' to rebuild bridges across the Danube that were destroyed during NATO's 78-day bombing campaign. Austria and Hungary have offered to start clearing the debris, which has obstructed commercial traffic and caused economic damage to those countries that depend on the river as a major trading channel. Zoran Djindjic, head of Serbia's Democratic Party who has been staging nightly protest marches with the ostensible goal of forcing Mr. Milosevic to surrender his grip on power, said the time had come for a major change in strategy. He proposed that the West offer to lift sanctions as soon as free and fair elections are held in Serbia, regardless of the winner. ''We all think this is now the right way to go,'' Mr. Djindjic said. ''The opposition alliance is united behind this idea, and so are the major European allies. Only the United States is against it, because the Americans seem to think lifting sanctions would send the wrong message to Milosevic.'' Mr. Djindjic is locked in a vicious power struggle with Vuk Draskovic, the mercurial head of the Serbian Renewal Movement, for leadership of the opposition drive to bring down Mr. Milosevic. Mr. Draskovic has refused to join the protest rallies and declined to meet even separately with Mr. Dobbins. Both men, however, insist that sanctions are hurting the cause of the anti-Milosevic opposition and have expressed exasperation with the United States for its refusal to ease the economic punishment being inflicted on ordinary Serbs. They argue that such steps are necessary to vindicate contacts with the West at a time when Mr. Milosevic is branding them as traitors who betray the most fundamental interests of the Serbian people. In a recent speech, Mr. Milosevic railed against his rivals as those who ''take their marching orders from NATO and are trying to finish the damage started by NATO bombs.'' International Herald Tribune, October 26, 1999 Gold Market More Gold from Guyana than the Stats Show And more money laundering blah blah. The managers of Guyana's gold industry, which has been growing steadily over the past 10 years, say production figures do not give the true story about the country's output. An estimated one fifth of the country's production, about 120,000 ounces per year, is being siphoned off. "There is extensive smuggling across the border into Surinam, Venezuela and Brazil," said Satkumar Hemraj, general manager of the Guyana Gold Board, the agency authorised to trade in gold in the English-speaking republic in northern South America. "There is also a very vibrant informal domestic market in which gold is used to make jewellery." There is also evidence that some of the gold is being used in money laundering operations, say government officials. "The US authorities are very keen about investigating some of these suspected operations, and we are dealing with the situation as it is not good for the country," said one. Retrieving what is being siphoned illegally would significantly lift Guyana's gold output above the 447,218 oz of last year. But in addition to the smuggling and the suspected money laundering, the industry faces other problems. Guyana's gold deposits are low-grade and the industry operates at high production costs. Except for the Canadian-operated Omai mine, which produces three-quarters of the country's gold, Guyana's miners have little technical sophistication. The Gold Board estimates there are 10,000 miners using dredges and suctions in alluvial mining. "The recovery rate by these miners is very low," says Mr Hemraj. "The ore is low-grade and the miners produce 1.7 grammes per tonne." Omai Mine's reserves have been predicated on a yield of 1.63 grammes per tonne. Last year, the company's yield was 1.44 grams per tonne. "By international standards, Omai is a low-grade/high-volume ore body," the company says. "A high-grade mine such as the Ashanti mine in Ghana has a high-grade operation of 10 grammes per tonne. Omai is considered a high-cost producer." Costs are kept high because of the long distances materials and equipment have to be transported from the populated coast to the interior. There are few roads to where the deposits are located. With the low price of gold, many of the smaller miners were under threat. Rising prices have brought some relief, says Mr Hemraj. Omai Mines is a US$300m venture in which Cambior and Golden Star Resources, both of Canada, own 65 per cent and 30 per cent, respectively, with the Guyana government owning 5 per cent. Located 160km south of Georgetown, Guyana's capital, Omai is the single largest investment in the country, and one of the largest open-pit mines in South America. Last year it produced 327,500 oz after completing a $53m expansion a year earlier. The company's production this year is forecast at 306,000 oz. Increased production is expected when the company begins to exploit new deposits. The government has awarded Omai Mines exploration licences for two concessions. The company's reserves are currently estimated at 54m tonnes of ore, against 41m tonnes when the mine was opened in 1993. With the recent increase in prices, prospects have brightened. Omai's direct mining costs last year averaged $239 per ounce. "We had some protection from low prices because we hedged our sales at $300 per ounce," said Seeta Mohamed, public communications co-ordinator for Omai. The industry and the government are concerned at Venezuela's recent renewal of a century-old claim on Guyana's Essequibo region in which most of the gold deposits are located. Recent bellicose statements from Venezuela about its claim on the 54,000 sq mile region have been mollified by an agreement with Guyana to seek international mediation on the dispute. Despite the low quality of the ore, depressed prices and the long-standing Venezuelan claim, several companies have been searching for more gold in Guyana. Among the foreign companies that have received concessions for prospecting are Broken Hill Proprietary of Australia and Golden Star Resources, which are exploring 2.5m acres in north-western and eastern Guyana. Zamuteba of Brazil has exploration rights for areas close to the border with Surinam. The government has also given a permit to Vanessa Ventura, a Canadian company, to conduct geological surveys for gold over 5.1m acres for two years. Guyana's gold output is expected to reach 434,000 oz this year, says Mr Hemraj. Higher production in the future is expected if any of the concessions prove economically feasible, and if the Gold Board can recover the production which is being smuggled. Financial Times, October 26, 1999 Electronic Trading Liffe to End Floor Trading Early Some Y2K concerns. Liffe, London's derivatives exchange, yesterday brought forward plans to close its floor trading operation after its largest customers said the move would help them cope with millennium problems. The London International Financial Futures Exchange will transfer all its short-term interest rate futures, representing about 60 per cent of the exchange's turnover, to its screen trading system on November 19. Liffe had originally planned to let the floor system die a natural death as liquidity switched to the screens. The action would save the exchange about £500,000 a month in operating costs. It would also save costs for the exchange's largest customers who have maintained a presence on the floor while also investing in screen trading. "We listened to our big customers and they said they did not want to continue to split liquidity between the floor and the screen over Y2K," said Hugh Freedberg, chief executive of Liffe. The move will deprive about 50 locals - self-employed floor traders - of their jobs and result in the relocation or redundancy of about 45 staff. About 100 traders and officials will remain until financial and equity options - accounting for about 15 per cent of Liffe's turnover - are moved to the screen early next year. In its heyday in the mid 1990s there were about 3,000 traders and officials employed by the floor. Locals said the timing was based more on Liffe's desire to reduce its operating costs than on pressure from big customers. They also said the screen trading system, Liffe Connect, was much less efficient than the floor for trading in interest rate contracts. The average bid/offer spread on the interest rate future on Euribor - the euro-denominated interest rate and Liffe's largest contract - was two "ticks" on Connect compared with about half a "tick" on the floor. A tick is worth about £16. "Liffe is making false economies here," said Karen Kellaway, a local in the Euribor pit. "By doing this now it will be reducing liquidity just when the market most needs it because of Y2K." Liffe is expected to make a loss this year after losing £64m last year - its first year in the red. But the closure of the floor and the reduction in its headcount by about 50 per cent is expected to reduce costs by about a quarter and help push the exchange back in to the black next year. The exchange will also close its offices in Spitalfields and at the London Stock Exchange. Financial Times, October 26, 1999 ----- Aloha, He'Ping, Om, Shalom, Salaam. Em Hotep, Peace Be, Omnia Bona Bonis, All My Relations. Adieu, Adios, Aloha. Amen. Roads End DECLARATION & DISCLAIMER ========== CTRL is a discussion and informational exchange list. Proselyzting propagandic screeds are not allowed. Substance—not soapboxing! These are sordid matters and 'conspiracy theory', with its many half-truths, misdirections and outright frauds is used politically by different groups with major and minor effects spread throughout the spectrum of time and thought. That being said, CTRL gives no endorsement to the validity of posts, and always suggests to readers; be wary of what you read. CTRL gives no credeence to Holocaust denial and nazi's need not apply. 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