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Clamor about gold reserves prompts leasing disclosure by Austrian central bank
11:05a ET Friday, November 23, 2012
Dear Friend of GATA and Gold:
Germany's clamor and agitation about the integrity of national gold reserves are spreading into Austria, where two national newspapers headquartered in Vienna, Die Presse and Der Standard, this week raised questions about Austria's national gold and even prompted a response from the country's central bank, the Oesterreichische Nationalbank (OeNB).
Die Presse's report, in German, is here:
http://diepresse.com/home/wirtschaft/economist/1315818/Reserven_National...
Der Standard's, also in German, is here:
http://derstandard.at/1353206965366/Staatsgold-koennte-verleast-worden-sein
Der Standard also has published what appears to be a report on the issue by the Austria Press Agency, the country's independent press association, which GATA consultant Dimitri Speck has translated into English and is appended. The APA report is notable for its inducing the OeNB to disclose details about its gold leasing, supposedly now down to 16 percent of the Austrian gold reserve, and for recognizing that a fractional-reserve gold banking system may jeopardize the return of leased gold.
Thus there seems to be increasing understanding internationally of GATA's complaint about the Western central bank gold price suppression scheme.
... Dispatch continues below ...
Prophecy Platinum Intercepts Best Pt+Pd+Au Grades Yet
at Wellgreen Project in Yukon Territory: 5.36 g/t
Company Press Release
Tuesday, September 11, 2012
VANCOUVER, British Columbia -- Prophecy Platinum Corp. (TSX-V: NKL, OTC-QX: PNIKF, Frankfurt: P94P) announces more results of its 2012 drill program on the company's fully-owned Wellgreen platinum group metals, nickel, and copper project in southwestern Yukon Territory, Canada. Four surface holes and four underground holes all intercepted significant mineralized widths, ranging from 28.5 meters (WS12-201) and up to 459.5 metres (WS12-193). Highlights include WU12-540, which returned 8.9 metres of 5.36 grams per tonne platinum, palladium, and gold; 1.73 percent copper; and 1.01 percent nickel within 304.5 meters of 0.66 g/t platinum-palladium-gold, 0.20 percent copper, and 0.27 percent nickel.
The surface drill program started in June and has completed 16 holes (assays pending for 12 holes) with two rigs now on site. The surface program continues to progress at a steady pace.
Prophecy Chairman John Lee commented: “Wellgreen is a very large nickel, copper, and platinum group metals project with near-surface high-grade zones. High-grade intercepts will be incorporated into resource modeling and mine planning in the pre-feasibility study. We expect further positive drill results from Wellgreen shortly.”
Wellgreen features a low 2.59-to-1 strip ratio, is situated at an altitude of 1,300 meters, and is only 15 kilometers from the two-lane paved Alaska Highway. Those factors significantly minimize the project's indirect costs.
For the complete company statement with full tabulation of the drilling results, please visit:
http://prophecyplat.com/news_2012_sep11_prophecy_platinum_drill_results.php
Yesterday's report from the English-language Austrian Times in Vienna, which appears to have drawn its content from the two newspaper reports cited above and which was dispatched to you --
http://www.gata.org/node/11954
-- quoted the Austrian National Bank as claiming to have earned E300 million from leasing its gold over the last decade. This has seemed extraordinarily high to GATA's brain trust and may be an indication that the bank was leasing everything it had and maybe even gold it didn't have.
In any case your secretary/treasurer today corresponded in some detail with a reporter for the Austria Press Agency who seems interested in pursuing a story about the country's gold reserves. Let's pray for his career and even for his safety.
Sorry for not being clearer and more detailed about all this. While our German friends lately have been performing the most heroic service on behalf of free and transparent markets and limited, accountable government, we are always terribly intimidated by the German language, as was Mark Twain, who wrote that "it ought to be gently and reverently set aside among the dead languages, for only the dead have time to learn it."
CHRIS POWELL, Secretary/Treasurer
Gold Anti-Trust Action Committee Inc.
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16 Percent of National Gold Leased Out
From Der Standard
Vienna, Austria
Thursday, November 22, 2012
http://derstandard.at/1353207010022/Staatsgold-zu-16-Prozent-verleast
According to a newspaper report at the beginning of the last decade up to 80 percent [of Austria's gold reserves] was leased to the bullion banks.
The Oesterreichische Nationalbank (OeNB) has broken a taboo and reported on Thursday that currently only 16 percent of its gold holdings are leased. A spokesman for the central bank confirmed a report of the daily newspaper Die Presse.
According to the newspaper report at the beginning of the last decade up to 80 percent was leased to the bullion banks.
When Ewald Nowotny replaced [central bank] Governor Klaus Liebscher in 2008, probably still about 50 percent of the national gold was leased out.
The question is important insofar as several experts consider the gold market as a fractional-reserve system, in which up to 100 kilograms of gold claims are traded for 1 kilo of the physical precious metal. Should an event similar to a "bank run" take place, the return of leased gold would be at risk. -- APA, November 22, 2012.
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