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MineWeb's Lawrence Williams: It would be surprising if gold market wasn't manipulated

Section: Daily Dispatches

9a ET Thursday, July 19, 2012

Dear Friend of GATA and Gold:

Reflecting on the latest report on the gold market by Erste Bank analyst Ronald Stoeferle (http://www.gata.org/node/11564), MineWeb's Lawrence Williams inclines even more toward the likelihood that the gold and silver markets are manipulated. Williams writes:

"There are so many hugely interested parties in precious metals price movements -- from both financial and political ends -- that it would actually be remarkable if there was no manipulation or intervention in the gold and silver markets in particular. Indeed, many of the manipulators, or interventionists, would just not see it as such but as a normal part of their day-to-day business.

"The world is at last becoming aware that everything is almost certainly manipulated in some way or another -- particularly by governments and the major financial institutions, which have the political and financial clout to carry this out, to meet their own agendas. But what is acceptable manipulation and what is not?"

... Dispatch continues below ...



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Sona Discovers Potential High-Grade Gold Mineralization
at Blackdome in British Columbia -- 13.6g over 1.5 Meters

From a Company Press Release
November 22, 2011

VANCOUVER, British Columbia -- With its latest surface diamond drilling program at its 100-percent-owned, formerly producing Blackdome gold mine in southern British Columbia, Sona Resources Corp. has discovered a potentially high-grade gold-mineralized area, with one hole intersecting 13.6 grams of gold in 1.5 meters of core drilling.

"We intersected a promising new mineralized zone, and we feel optimistic about the assay results," says Sona's president and CEO, John P. Thompson. "We have undertaken an aggressive exploration program that has tested a number of target zones. Our discovery of this new gold-bearing structure is significant, and it represents a positive development for the company."

Sona aims to bring its permitted Blackdome mill back into production over the next year and a half, at a rate of 200 tonnes per day, with feed from the formerly producing Blackdome mine and the nearby Elizabeth gold deposit property. A positive preliminary economic assessment by Micon International Ltd., based on a gold price of $950 per ounce over eight years, has estimated a cash cost of $208 per tonne milled, or $686 per gold ounce recovered.

For the company's complete press release, please visit:

http://www.sonaresources.com/_resources/news/SONA_NR18_2011-opt.pdf



Williams' question has an answer.

First, market manipulation by private entities is, in most modern economies, against the law, like anti-trust law, though the law may not be much enforced anymore as the West sinks haplessly into corruption and demoralization.

Second, market manipulation by governments is at least morally wrong if it is undertaken in secret to deceive market participants, and in some circumstances freedom-of-information law may be brought to bear against it, as GATA has done:

http://www.gata.org/node/9917

But mere musing is no substitute for journalism. As GATA has compiled and published much official documentation of central bank manipulation of the gold market --

http://www.gata.org/taxonomy/term/21 --

-- the question is really just how far the manipulation extends, and manipulation can be confirmed, reconfirmed, and explored by any news organization willing to put some specific questions about gold to central banks.

Indeed, yesterday your secretary/treasurer was contacted by someone who identified himself as a writer for Seeking Alpha undertaking an essay meant to be critical of GATA and asking a dozen questions about GATA and its work. Your secretary/treasurer answered them cordially enough but added that the writer might perform a better service in regard to gold market manipulation if he could put even half as many questions to central banks themselves, as they have far more information about gold than GATA does, even as they refuse to provide much of it. Your secretary/treasurer offered to supply the writer with questions that most likely would elicit from central banks some very telling refusals to answer. We'll see if he's interested. But for the moment it seems that journalists find GATA far more accessible and accountable than central banks. Even the most respected financial journalists seem to assume that the unaccountability of central banks is to be taken for granted.

Williams' commentary is headlined "It's a Fine Line Between Gold Manipulation and Intervention" and it's posted at MineWeb here:

http://www.mineweb.com/mineweb/view/mineweb/en/page33?oid=155397&sn=Deta...

CHRIS POWELL, Secretary/Treasurer
Gold Anti-Trust Action Committee Inc.

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Prophecy Platinum Announces Wellgreen Preliminary Economic Assessment:
38% Pre-Tax IRR, $3.0 Billion NPV, and a 37-Year Mine Life

Company Press Release

VANCOUVER, British Columbia, Canada -- Prophecy Platinum Corp. (TSX-V: NKL, OTC-QX: PNIKF, Frankfurt: P94P) reports the results of an independent NI 43-101-compliant preliminary economic assessment for its fully owned Wellgreen nickel-copper-platinum group metals project in the Yukon Territory.

The independent assessment, prepared by Tetra Tech, evaluated a base case of an open-pit mine (with a mining rate of 111,500 tonnes per day), an on-site concentrator (with a milling rate of 32,000 tonnes per day), and an initial capital cost of $863 million. The project is expected to produce (in concentrate) 1.959 billion pounds of nickel, 2.058 billion pounds of copper, and 7.119 million ounces of platinum, palladium, and gold during a mine life of 37 years with an average strip ratio of 2.57.

The financial highlights of the preliminary economic assessment, shown in U.S. dollars, are as follows:

Payback period: 3.55 years
Initial capital investment: $863 million
IRR pre-tax (100% equity): 38 percent
NPV pre-tax (8% discount): $3 billion
Mine life: 37 years
Total mill feed: 405.3 million tonnes
Mill throughput: 32,000 tonnes per day

Prophecy Chairman John Lee says: "We are pleased with the preliminary economic assessment results. The numbers indicate that Wellgreen is one of most exciting mineral projects in the Yukon. The company is drilling to upgrade and expand the resource base. The infrastructure is excellent as the project is only 1,400 meters in altitude and 14 kilometers from the paved Alaska Highway, which leads to the Haines deep seaport. Discussions are under way with support from local stakeholders regarding permitting and logistics."

For the complete press release, please visit:

http://prophecyplat.com/news_2012_june18_prophecy_platinum_announces_res...