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Strategies & Market Trends : 2026 TeoTwawKi ... 2032 Darkest Interregnum -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: marcher who wrote (208914)	11/12/2024 11:14:16 PM
From: TobagoJack	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 218106

re << it suggests that 6% of the chinese population is qualified as disabled [p. 4]:>> possibly, but I dunno. I have no benchmark of same stat from elsewhere around the planet, knowing only that whatever the case, the averages are only and just the almost meaningless averages indicatives of not a whole lot I got sent the following two links this day and am ruminating. I wait to see how this below featured linked story resolves, as its resolution shall require iq as well as eq, but first, the video link describing a related situation that underlies the mining issue described in article Re below, am not certain there is actually a problem as long as the pricing of gold keeps going up to make everybody happy wsj.com A Drug Gang Stole 3 Tons of Gold in a Scam So Perfect It’s Still Going Miners are plundering one of the biggest mother lodes of gold in Latin America, led by gunmen who seized tunnels from a Chinese mining giant The air below ground is hot, humid, sometimes toxic, and the work is dangerous—defending claustrophobic passageways against tossed explosives and gunfire from AK-47 assault rifles. Two guards were killed and several others wounded last year. On the other side, braving their own dangers, are an estimated 2,000 illegal miners. The scale of plunder is stunning. Mine owner Zijin Mining Group, a Chinese state-controlled company, estimated that last year it lost more than 3.2 tons of gold, worth around $200 million and equal to 38% of the mine’s total production. The illegal mining, a slow and laborious process that continues largely unpoliced by authorities, is a war “we are losing,” a Zijin security official said. Rogue miners at Zijin’s mines and elsewhere in Colombia get access, protection and equipment from the Gulf Clan, an armed militia of some 7,000 men that moves cocaine and migrants along routes headed to the U.S. The group seizes Zijin tunnels on behalf of illegal miners in exchange for a cut of the spoils. Illegal gold mining in South America has expanded in recent years, government officials said, propelled by record-high gold prices, up 30% this year to around $2,600 an ounce. The miners move dredges and excavators into jungles, igniting conflicts with local indigenous groups, and use mercury to separate gold from rock, polluting parts of the Amazon rainforest in several countries. Zijin’s cable-car system at its mine in Colombia. As history shows, the lure of gold can be irresistible. Some of Colombia’s trespassing miners extract $5,000 or more worth of gold a month, a sum about equal to what business executives earn. Since 2019, about 18 illegal miners have been killed in accidents at the Zijin mine, company officials said. “The wages are very good, but you risk it all,” said Erik Dubier, a 22-year-old illegal miner. “You can get trapped. There are rock slides. And there’s combat every day.” Zijin Mining, which operates worldwide, filed a $430 million lawsuit at the World Bank’s International Center for the Settlement of Investment Disputes, alleging Colombia authorities aren’t doing their job. Zijin estimates that illegal miners control more than 60% of its mining tunnels in the mountains around Buriticá, a two-hour drive from Medellín. The company bought the mine in 2020 from Canada’s Continental Gold for $1 billion, part of Beijing’s global push to secure minerals. Leizhong Li, the company’s chief executive, said violent incursions have since become a daily threat—with little help from the government. “We tried to talk to the state all last year but didn’t see much will,” Li said. The company estimated that Colombia lost the equivalent of $100 million in taxes and royalties last year. Daniela Gómez, the vice minister of defense, said Colombia doesn’t have the capacity to flush out the clandestine miners from the “subterranean theater of operations.” The government, she said, wants to avoid violent confrontations that might endanger civilians. “The demands made by the company are not realistic,” said Gómez. Zijin bought the gold-mine operation “knowing that the illegal extraction of minerals was taking place,” she said. The head of Zijin’s private security speaking to one of the company’s armed guards at a barricade built to keep out illegal miners. Armed guards from Zijin’s private security keeping watch behind a sandbag barricade. Over the past four years, illegal miners have built an underground network so vast that Zijin engineers said the mountain has started to resemble Swiss cheese, crisscrossed with makeshift passageways and tunnels leading from an estimated 380 aboveground entryways. The Gulf Clan provides bunks, kitchens, bathrooms and security. The gang also delivers sex workers, marijuana and other drugs to miners during weeklong stints. “There’s everything there,” Dubier said. Trench warfareIllegal miners worm their way into the Zijin mine from a chain of small houses perched on a mountain holding one of Latin America’s largest gold mother lodes. The miners use explosive charges and rock drills to penetrate bathroom floors and bore through hundreds of yards of stone and clay. Inch by inch, the miners excavate passageways to reach the Zijin tunnels. Militia fighters force the retreat of Zijin security forces with explosives and gunfire in what a company official described as trench warfare. Zijin said it has no other recourse but to surrender the tunnels, a retreat jeopardizing the future of its gold-mine concession. “It happens every day,” Li said of the subterranean clashes. The company estimated that it has had to abandon an estimated 40 tons of gold deposits in the areas seized by the Gulf Clan and illegal miners. Gómez, the vice minister of defense, described legal obstacles to searching homes and arresting miners. “I can go to Buriticá tomorrow and capture 300 people,” she said. “The judge will free them by nightfall.” On a recent tour of the underground tunnels, Zijin’s senior security official at the mine pointed out the wall of sandbags separating company operations from trespassers working less than 100 yards away. The miners’ voices carried through the darkness. “All the mining from here to there has been lost,” he said, pointing to the distant lights where illegal miners worked. “They advance progressively, taking ownership.” A miner arranging explosive charges during a mining operation. A cloud of smoke rising from the opening of an illegal mine during the detonation of homemade explosives. Miners often seize Zijin tunnels by first tossing explosives and shooting at guards, the security official said. The miners carry jackleg drills and set off as many as 250 detonations a day to break through rock. Their advance has cost Zijin two of the mine’s three sections. The richest and deepest part of the gold mine remains in company hands. Zijin has about 4,500 workers there and at processing centers. The company excavates around 4,000 tons of rock a day, which yields an average of 53 pounds of gold. “It’s a tremendous problem,” said Javier Sarmiento, an investigator tracking mine troubles in Buriticá for Colombia’s Inspector General’s Office, a state agency. ‘Lack of control’Zijin executives said the underground battle worsened after the 2022 election of leftist President Gustavo Petro. Past governments welcomed foreign mining companies, including Zijin. But Petro and his ministers have been critical of large-scale mining, saying they want to shift the economy toward such sustainable industries as avocado farming and tourism. Colombia’s government says the country needs to transform the economy of Buriticá so that citizens have a choice of better jobs. Officials say they want to open a path for illegal miners to instead form legal cooperatives to run small artisanal mines. Some officials have suggested that Zijin give up some of its mine holdings to trespassers in a bid for peace. “There are areas in that concession where there is no exploration, no activity whatsoever,” said Luis Álvaro Pardo, president of the state’s National Mining Agency. “So we’re saying, ‘Look Zijin, cede some areas.’” Previous government had more aggressive policies against armed groups, said Li, the company’s chief executive. In 2016, Colombia launched Operation Crete, which closed more than 250 illegal passageways into the mine over four years. Mules lining up to be loaded with equipment and supplies to take to illegal miners working in Zijin tunnels. Zijin said Colombia needed to again close off routes used by criminals stealing company gold. “From our point of view, the policy is not favorable to mining and the multinationals,” Li said. “How can authorities not know this and act against this?” The state Inspector General’s Office has asked the government to develop a plan of action to stop the theft, Sarmiento said. Nothing has come of the request. “It has a lot to do with politics,” he said. “The arrival of this new government appears to have not been favorable to the situation.” Brigadier General William Castaño, who oversees a police team assigned to the mine, said his forces regularly confront rogue miners. “There are interventions almost every day,” he said. Sarmiento and Zijin executives said the state should try to cut off the electricity that powers the drills used by illegal miners. They said police and troops deployed in Buriticá could inspect vehicles traveling on the single road leading to the mine. Vehicles ferry in equipment and supplies and leave laden with stolen gold ore, according to Zijin executives. “This is a pure lack of control by the authorities,” Sarmiento said. Thousands of miners have arrived from other parts of Colombia and neighboring Venezuela to seek their fortune. Some have branched away from Zijin’s tunnels to mine gold deposits in La Centena, a mine a few miles away. Those miners deny Zijin’s claim that they are taking company gold. Andres Rave standing at the entrance of a mine he helped build on Zijin’s concession. On a recent day, Andres Rave, an older miner at La Centena, walked through the water and mud of a tunnel floor. He and a handful of others have dug passageways that extend about 200 yards into the mountain. With the light on his hard hat illuminating colorful, craggy rocks, Rave ran his hand along a distinctive layer of minerals. “This vein that runs here,” he said, ”this is the one that holds the gold.” Dust particles floated in the air. Rocks underfoot had fallen from tunnel walls and ceilings. Duber Antonio Quiros didn’t give it much thought. He and other miners worked to reinforce man-sized tunnels with wooden beams. Commercial miners use tunnel-boring equipment to build passageways supported by steel and concrete. Some are large enough for trucks. “We small-time miners don’t have the technology the big companies have,” Quiros said. “But this gets into your blood and becomes your passion.” A miner taking a break from drilling.

To: marcher who wrote (208914)	11/14/2024 3:05:49 AM
From: TobagoJack	2 Recommendations Recommended By Arran Yuan marcher Respond to of 218106

re <<%>> rather unusual event arose, that Team China now able to borrow USD at less cost than the domain that prints the USD. IOW, rather funny when once one has fully digested the circumstances to appreciate its finer factors ... bloomberg.com Yields on New China Dollar Bonds Fall Below Treasuries in DebutInvestors bid for 20 times the bonds on offer at sale Three-year note trades about 24 basis points under Treasuries By Ameya Karve, Finbarr Flynn, and Lorretta Chen 14 November 2024 at 11:36 GMT+8 China just borrowed dollars in global credit markets at essentially the same cost as the country that prints them, and traders immediately drove the yields on the bonds down even further. The Asian nation raised $2 billion from three- and five-year notes that yield just one and three basis points over similar-maturity Treasuries, respectively. Then once trading kicked off Thursday, spreads tightened to about 24 and 25 basis points under Treasuries, traders said. That adds to signs of strong demand that stood out throughout the debt sale process. Bids for the $2 billion deal surpassed $40 billion, 20 times what was on offer, according to a person familiar with the matter. Traders said part of the strength stems from demand from Chinese investors, who have been hunting for higher returns globally as local rates grind lower. Such investors can also benefit from tax exemptions on the nation’s sovereign debt. Their enthusiasm already helped yields on some of China’s previously issued dollar bonds trade below those on Treasuries for most of the past year, a rarity because the US securities have historically been considered the safest of investments. “Lack of dollar bond supply plus accommodative financing conditions onshore have led to a strong bid for dollar bonds from China onshore investors,” said Xue Zhou, senior China economist at Mizuho Securities Asia Ltd. China’s dollar note due November 2027 has held a so-called negative spread to US Treasuries for most of the past year, and the yield on that debt security was last about 18 basis points under the equivalent US government bond, Bloomberg-compiled data show. What’s happening in stocks, bonds, currencies and commodities right now. While China’s newly issued bonds were available to investors globally, officials last week said they would be sold in Saudi Arabia, an unusual venue given that London, New York and Hong Kong are normally being picked for such transactions. But the choice comes after recent efforts to boost economic ties. Officials from both countries met earlier this year to discuss cooperation, and the warming relations can be seen in moves such as a doubling of investment in Saudi Arabia by China’s biggest steel producer. “It is in line with the two countries’ rising connections,” said Ting Meng, senior Asia credit strategist at Australia & New Zealand Banking Group. “The bond is in the same format as prior ones, but there could be more Middle East investors.” The bonds will be listed on Nasdaq Dubai and the Hong Kong exchange. China sold 2 billion euros ($2.1 billion) of notes in Paris in September, its first euro-denominated bond sale in three years. Last week, the Ministry of Finance announced a $1.4 trillion bailout program for debt-straddled local governments, though it stopped short of more stimulus to lift domestic demand. Bank of China, Bank of Communications, Agricultural Bank of China, BofA Securities, China Construction Bank, China International Capital Corporation, Citigroup, Crédit Agricole CIB, Deutsche Bank, First Abu Dhabi Bank, Goldman Sachs (Asia) L.L.C., HSBC, ICBC, J.P. Morgan, Mizuho and Standard Chartered Bank arranged the sale. — With assistance from Qingqi She, Helene Durand, Paul Cohen, Caleb Mutua, Jing Zhao, Shulun Huang, and Paul Dobson

To: marcher who wrote (208914)	11/14/2024 7:44:06 AM
From: TobagoJack	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 218106

Re <<does china execute folks with mental retardation or psychological disabilities?>> … dunno. Here, a case involving a character heretonow unknown to me shall find out what Team Korea does to person of questionable capabilities and capacities … Singapore just canes such if you remember the case that one of Team USA POTUS saw fit to intervene without success. If you watch the video to near the end you see American-Koreans cautioning Johnny to not return to America because he faces execution. Am guessing that Johnny is not doing well in Korean jail amongst many folks likely trained in martial arts. We used to have a fellow on this SI thread who denied the Korean comfort women truth.