Gold plunges on unexpected lay-off data, strong dollar

CHICAGO, June 5 (Xinhua) -- Gold futures on the COMEX Division of the New York Mercantile Exchange went sharply down on Friday as the U.S. dollar bounced quickly and the better-than-expected jobless data made investors more confident in economy recovery. Silver and platinum both finished lower, too.

Gold price for August delivery lost 19.70 U.S. dollars, or 2 percent, to settle at 962.60 dollars an ounce, giving up the previous session's gain.

Although the U.S. unemployment rate jumped to 9.4 percent in May, the highest level since 1984, the pace of layoffs eased unexpectedly, adding to evidence that the recession is improved.

The U.S. Labor Department said on Friday that employers cut 345,000 jobs last month, far fewer than the more than 500,000 job losses that had been forecast by the economists. It is the fourth straight month that the pace of layoffs slowed, which is considered as the sign that the labor market is stabilizing.

Analysts indicated the bullish jobless data eased worries on economic uncertainty and market turmoil, reducing gold's appeal as safety assets.

Buoyed by the good news in labor market, dollar went up quickly from the intraday lowest level of 1.4267 dollars against euro early in the morning and climbed to 1.3994 dollars by the end of gold floor trading time. This gave additional pressure on the precious metal.

July silver finished at 15.388 dollars per ounce, down 50.7 cents. July platinum fell 7.10 dollars to 1,286.20 dollars an ounce

The Madness at the World's End.

Many who read here must have been noticing a new trend that has been moving away from specific subjects to a more general overview. The reason for this is that talking about Obamabush; torture, cover-ups, 9/11, wars in progress, wars on the horizon, financial crashes and the screeching demon spawn of modern day Israel, as well as the genocide in Gaza and across the globe from Peru to Western Papua doesn’t accomplish much because we all know about these things from the minority- I still have a heart- view or we don’t know much about anything because we really don’t give a shit about much more than our stomachs, sex organs and position in the pecking order.

The real reason I’m staying with an overview instead of specifics is that chain reaction, domino factor and my constant awareness of the Apocalypse thing. I’m an intuitive sort, being nearly all right brain. Most of you are left brain. However, it doesn’t matter how we come to our conclusions as long as they are accurate. It doesn’t matter if you use deductive or inductive reasoning. It’s the results that count. By my experience, my intuitive sense has been about 98% in governing my life experiences. There’s something to it. Rationalists can harp about empirical data all they want. It doesn’t change how I do things.

People think past life regression is a lot of BS but… they have no answers for uncanny events where people are speaking fluently in tongues unknown to them. People scoff at UFO’s, yet evidence of them exists in ancient cultures and large numbers of people have had experiences in the modern day. I am one of them. It is without question that there is as much fantasy and chicanery in these fields as there is in many of the holocaust memoirs but… some of it must be true and I am a firm believer that “There are more things in Heaven and Earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy.”

Even being mostly right-brained, as well as a metaphysician and mystic, I believe that anything which exists, no matter how fantastic in appearance MUST have a scientific basis. I believe that all the supernatural claims of religion MUST have a rational and scientific foundation. My explanation for this is that we only know a few of the laws of Nature and The Cosmos. The answer to what mystifies us lies in the laws we are not aware of or do not understand. Every bonafide, yogic master; Theosophist, metaphysician, holy man, woman or entity from the beyond will all tell you, “trust but verify.” Any authentic source will tell you to question everything. In many ways we are in a dark age. You don’t have to look far to prove this to yourself. The state of religion is always a good indicator of the degree of relative ignorance; this can be measured by the distance between the proclamations of the founders and the beliefs and behaviors of the followers.

Let’s go to Spengler’s theory of cyclic recurrence. Let’s look at the well know comment by Santayana that “those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it.” If you were asked to verify these statements that most of us take for granted you might find yourself wondering how it is that you came to believe they are true. The seasons repeat. Day and night repeats. The planets and the moon go through their rotations and phases. Life is cyclic. People come out of the unknown and disappear back into it. History shows us that global crisis materialize and repeat in various aspects all along the length of itself. Revolution is a recurring fact. Catastrophes come and go. Civilizations rise and fall. It should require no great leap of the imagination to accept that apocalyptic periods occur according to their mysterious schedule. Once again I point out that the actual meaning of ‘apocalypse’ is uncovering, revealing. You can add ‘exposing’ to the list of possible definitions.

Let’s look at some of the things that are being revealed and exposed to the population which at any other time would have been swept under the rug; hundreds of facts concerning 9/11 and who did it, the root causers of financial mayhem, the dirty dealings of bankers and politicians, scams without count, genocide in Gaza, massive historical frauds about great events that clearly did not happen the way we had been led to believe they did, ubiquitous corporate malfeasance and so much more. Much of this has been uncovered and the veil lifted by tireless, internet detectives but… much of it has been made public by the very organs of disinformation that serve at the beck and call of those feeding upon the flesh, blood and resources of the peoples of the world.

I’m not a traditional prophet with a long beard and an even longer robe who feeds on locusts and cosmic fire. I don’t have to be. All I have to do is add up what is in front of me and weigh the possible scenarios against the conditions and the players and then see how that stacks up against what we know of the past.

Here’s what I see. I see a hard core minority of power mad reptiles who will stop at nothing to get what they want and who care less for human life than a boa constrictor cares about the comfort of the rat in its jaws or a psychotic pimp cares about the emotional state of an underperforming hooker. It’s probably less than that. It’s not personal with the snake and the pimp just sees himself as a business man. These other creatures enjoy evil for the sheer joy of doing it. You can’t take someone like a ruling member of The Rothschild family, David Rockefeller or his protégé, Henry Kissinger and attribute human qualities to them. They don’t have any. You may find this hard to believe or visualize but it is so.

On the other hand, you have a general public which, by dint of poor education, less curiosity and the endless assault of the Madison Avenue spin machine, has been reduced to a clueless automaton not far above the beasts of the field whose sole concern is the satisfaction of their appetites. Then there’s the people who get things done; heard, interpret experience, speak out in the available venues and who are awake by various degrees to what is going on. There are two groups here, those who serve the psychopaths and those who do not. The first group is the larger one.

You take these personnel and you analyze their possible actions under the influence of certain pressures such as the disappearance of basic needs and the rapid decrease of appetite satisfaction products. You consider the global money game being manipulated by the non-human entities I have mentioned and their reptile associates. You should remember that these characters have no more love for each other than they have for the rest of us. You add in natural calamities and engineered disasters which include assassinations, technical malfunctions, bio-engineered viruses and sundry. You factor in the intense pressure of the urban environment and the rapidly increasing population as well as the corporate fever to produce ever more dangerous items of ever more questionable quality for an ever increasing margin of profit.

There’s a great deal I could add to the mix should I be so inclined but you get the picture. What this all seems to indicate is that what is happening can’t keep happening and remain successful for the majority of the intentions of those profiteering from these things. The larger public is going to become more and more fearful of the loss of more and more of which they were accustomed to and more and more angry about it. The emerging of the police state in the U.S. and the U.K. is the reaction of the power junkies to the public unrest. Keep in mind their dislike of each other and the apocalyptic nature of the times.

Between now, on into 2010 and beyond, the world is going to be set on its ear. You are a fool to believe otherwise and we’ve got no shortage there. This is the time of shit introduced to fan. This is time we always heard about but which always happened at some other time. These are the ‘interesting times’ of the well traveled Chinese saying. Some of you can surf and most of you can’t even swim. The one thing I will say in conclusion here is that no one knows what shape it’s going to take. You’d better have something you can rely on because there are far too many everyone’s out for themselves.

When it really starts to get underway it’s going to be like a tsunami of dominoes and the usual assortment of people will be impressed by all the new extension of beach and whatever they can grab out of the retreating tide. There’s little more that I can say but there is a lot more for you to think about.

印度‧受看好安度金融風暴‧大馬列10強名單

（印度‧新德里）一項國際商業調查顯示，大馬是世界10大備受看好能安然度過金融風暴的國家之一。

這項調查是由Servcorp國際公司展開，受訪者是來自世界各國的7500名商人，調查項目包括全球經濟衰退的氛圍與衝擊，以及哪些國家能在金融危機來襲時“逃過劫數”。

調查結果顯示，大馬、瑞典及越南在調查中並列第10位，榜首澳洲傲視群雄，中國居次，印度及新加坡排在第3，“亞洲四小龍”之一的香港和加拿大分別佔據第5及第6位。

值得一提的是，英國、德國、荷蘭、台灣和美國等經濟強國及地區，卻屈居排行榜下游。

這項調查是在今年4月進行，歷時2週，涉及超過24個國家和地區。

For more details please see this link :

http://tinyurl.com/o4283j

新加坡‧首名華人歷史學家獲選‧王賡武獲頒劍橋名譽文學博士

（新加坡）新加坡國立大學東亞研究所主席王賡武教授獲頒劍橋大學名譽文學博士，他是第一位獲得這項殊榮的華人歷史學家。

在這之前，全球華人當中只有金庸以及李嘉誠獲得劍橋名譽博士。李嘉誠因為對公益事業的支持不遺餘力，在1999年獲頒名譽法學博士，而金庸在2005年因為文學方面的成就，獲頒名譽文學博士。

英國歷史最悠久的大學之一劍橋大學，從1977年開始，它每年都從全球科學、文學、人文科學、藝術等各領域挑選出引領風騷的人物，頒發名譽博士學位。

今年是劍橋創校800年，它特地挑選出9名在各領域極具代表性的重量級人物，授予這項榮譽。

除了王賡武教授外，今年獲得名譽博士的還有近年來投身慈善事業的微軟創辦人比爾蓋茨夫婦、諾貝爾經濟獎得主阿馬迪亞‧森（Amartya Sen）等。他們將在6月12日到劍橋大學參加莊嚴而隆重的學位頒發典禮。

今年79歲的王賡武教授是中國歷史、海外華人、東南亞與中國關係研究的權威，在中國政治與經濟崛起的當兒，王教授的觀點與研究特別受到學術界的重視。

王賡武教授受訪時說，歐洲學術界向來重視的是中國的古代史，從16世紀開始，耶穌教的傳教士到了中國後，寫了許多關於中國政治、經濟、思想和制度的報告，回去介紹給歐洲時，令歐洲感到非常驚奇，之後的200年間，歐洲人對中國的古代文明是充滿羨慕的。

到了19世紀，歐洲軍隊把中國打敗後，商人到中國去經商時發現，中國實在很腐敗，而且人民貧困，教育水平不高，古代那些了不起的發明都被遺忘了。

清朝結束後，中國陷入內戰和抗戰，內憂外患之下，政治混亂，經濟根本搞不起來。看到一個衰弱的中國，西歐人開始看不起現代中國，更看不出中國的潛力。

於是近百年來，歐洲學術界對中國的研究就開始落後於美國，一直到前幾年，這個趨勢才慢慢改變過來。

在劍橋大學慶祝創校800週年的時刻，校方在各領域的權威學者之中選出了第一位研究中國的華人歷史學家頒授名譽博士學位，足見歐洲學術界對近現代中國歷史研究的重視。

Feeling the Hate In Jerusalem on Eve of Obama's Cairo Address

Please the link below on youtube:

http://tinyurl.com/pcng88

Up, Up and Away - Unemployment Rises to 9.4%

US loses just 345,000 jobs in May, raising hopes

Economy sheds 345,000 jobs in May, a big improvement; jobless past shoots well past 9 percent

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Employers throttled back on layoffs in May and cut the fewest jobs in any month since the financial crisis erupted last fall -- raising the brightest hope yet that an economic recovery will take hold later this year.

But with companies still reluctant to hire, the nation's jobless rate rose to a quarter-century high of 9.4 percent, and it likely will keep rising into 2010, possibly within striking distance of its post-World War II peak of 10.8 percent.

The economy shed 345,000 jobs in May, the Labor Department said Friday -- half what it was losing in a month at the start of the year. But the report also underscored how hard it has been for America's 14.5 million unemployed to find new jobs.

"Less bad, yes," Ian Shepherdson, chief U.S. economist at High Frequency Economics, said, summarizing the economy. "Good, no."

Companies probably won't ramp up hiring until they feel sure a recovery is here to stay. Still, considering the damage the recession has wrought -- 6 million jobs lost since December 2007 -- it was encouraging that employers cut far fewer jobs in May.

The 345,000 jobs lost was down sharply from 504,000 in April, and an even bigger improvement over the average of nearly 700,000 jobs lost monthly during the first quarter of this year.

"The light at the end of the tunnel just got a lot brighter," said Nigel Gault, chief U.S. economist at IHS Global Insight.

But not so bright that economists expect more employers to start hiring again this year. Economists expect the pace of layoffs to keep tapering off, but they don't think the economy will begin to create jobs steadily until late next year at the earliest.

"Payrolls are learning to crawl but far from walking," said Michael Feroli, economist at JPMorgan Economics.

Stocks rallied on the better-than-expected news, but then surrendered most of the gains. The Dow Jones industrial average made a brief foray into positive territory for 2009, then pulled back to close up about 13 points at 8,763.13.

The job losses was the fewest since September and the fourth straight month in which the pace of layoffs slowed. In another heartening note, job losses for March and April turned out to be 82,000 less than the government had reported.

"This tide is turning," said Richard Yamarone, economist at Argus Research. "We expect this trend of slower job loss to continue throughout the year."

With no place for the out-of-work to land, the unemployment rate bolted to 9.4 percent from 8.9 percent in April. It was the highest rate since August 1983.

Hundreds of thousands of people, perhaps feeling more confident about their job prospects, streamed back into the labor force last month looking for work. That was a factor in the jobless rate's rise, economists said.

Labor Secretary Hilda Solis called the uptick in unemployment "unacceptable" and pledged to bring it down by helping the unemployed get new skills or training.

Including laid-off workers who have given up looking for new jobs or have settled for part-time work, the so-called underemployment rate would be 16.4 percent in May, the highest on record dating to 1994.

And the number of people out of work six months or more rose to nearly 4 million in May, a record and triple the total from when the recession began.

Dan Blatt, 37, who found a retail job in January after being laid off in October, is one of the lucky few. "I'd be frantic if I didn't have anything now," he said while attending a job fair in New York and looking for something even better.

To cut costs and perhaps avoid imposing further layoffs, employers trimmed workers' hours in May. The average work week fell to 33.1 hours, the lowest on record dating to 1964.

Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke repeated his prediction this week that the recession will end this year, but again warned that any recovery will be gradual.

Against that backdrop, many economists say the jobless rate will hit 10 percent by the end of this year and will keep rising into 2010. Some economists think it could near 11 percent. The highest since World War II was 10.8 percent at the end of 1982.

"Let me be very clear: A lower job-rate loss is not our goal," Vice President Joe Biden said. "`Less bad' is not how we're going to measure success."

Biden said he will join Obama on Monday in seeking to put more juice into the president's stimulus effort, including higher spending on public works projects. Biden did not provide details.

Solis and some economists credited the stimulus with helping to reduce layoffs in May. But other analysts said the benefits of the stimulus wouldn't really kick in until later this year or more likely next year.

The construction industry saw particular improvement in May, losing 59,000 jobs compared with 108,000 in April. Retailers eliminated 17,500, down from 36,500. Financial activities axed 30,000, down from 45,000.

But factories cut 156,000 jobs in May, slightly more than in April. The government, adding workers for the 2010 Census, reduced its employment by 7,000 after bulking up by 92,000 in April.

Education, health care, leisure and hospitality were among the industries adding jobs.

The Fed says unemployment will remain elevated into 2011, with a tepid economic recovery. The job market may not return to normal -- meaning a roughly 5 percent unemployment rate -- until 2013, economists say.

Still, evidence is mounting that the recession is letting up, with fresh signs emerging earlier this week. The number of people drawing continuing unemployment benefits dipped for the first time in 20 weeks, and first-time claims also fell. Builders are boosting spending on construction projects, and home sales are somewhat firmer.

But ripple effects from the twin bankruptcies of General Motors and Chrysler could muddy the job market this month.

AP Business Writer Tali Arbel in New York contributed to this report.

Kung Fu and Kill Bill star David Carradine found accidentally hanged after 'sex games' in Bangkok hotel wardrobe

David Carradine could have died from suffocation or heart failure after an auto-erotic sex act went tragically wrong, Thai police said today.

The star of the iconic Seventies TV show Kung Fu, was found dead in a Bangkok hotel room yesterday in bizarre circumstances.

Police said the 72-year-old American actor had hanged himself, using cords from curtains in the room

A hotel chambermaid discovered his naked body hanging in a wardrobe with a cord around his neck and genitals.

Thai police said they could not no longer treat the case as a simple suicide.

But police commander Lieutenant General Worapong Siewpreecha emphasised it still remained unclear whether he killed himself or died from suffocation or heart failure.

'There was a rope tied around his neck and another rope tied to his genitals, and the two ropes were tied together and they hung in the closet, ' he said.

'Under these circumstances we cannot be sure that he committed suicide.'

A post-mortem examination carried out in Bangkok's Chulalongkorn Hospital is expected to reveal the cause of death as asphyxia.

Thai coroners are also waiting on toxicology results before determining the exact cause of death.

His death sparked a raft of tributes across Hollywood as stars and friends insisted the actor was full of life and didn't appear suicidal.

Quentin Tarantino, Michael Madsen and Rob Schneider all told U.S. talk show host Larry King there was no way the actor would have killed himself.

'I am still in a state shock. He was a dream to direct he was a fantastic actor, a great character actor and really one of Hollywood's great mad geniuses,' said Tarantino, who directed Carradine in Kill Bill.

'The thing I cannot get my head around is that there could have been a period of David's long life when he might have been suicidal, but this was not the time.'

Schneider said the star had everything going for him and was really on an 'upswing'.

'This was a guy that was alive. He was a living legend and really people were coming around and appreciating him.

'He could not do all the work that was being offered to him. I am convinced, there was no way that he would have killed himself.'

Madsen hosted Carradine's wedding in 2004 and said that his widow was 'very confused' by her late husband's death.

'I talked to Annie about that and she said the most important thing she wanted people to know was that David was not suicidal and he was not depressed.

'He was not about to do something like that, he had a job and he was working.'

The actor in the 1970s TV series Kung Fu

Director Martin Scorcese also paid tribute to the actor and said he was deeply saddened by the tragic news.

'We met when we made "Boxcar Bertha" together, almost 40 years ago,' he said.

'I have very fond memories of our time together on that picture and on Mean Streets, where he agreed to do a brief cameo.'

Others agreed the star seemed happy.

'I can tell you 100 per cent that he would have never committed suicide,' Tiffany Smith, who along with Chuck Binder managed the Kill Bill star. 'He was too full of life.'

'We're just waiting for them to finish the investigation and find out what really happened.

'He really appreciated everything life has to give ... and that's not something David would ever do to himself.'

Binder, said: ‘He was full of life, always wanting to work – a great person.’

Michael Madsen, who played an assassin in Kill Bill said: 'It is shocking to me that he is no longer with us.'

'I had been thinking about calling him for the last several days ... I have so many great memories of David that I wouldn’t even know where to begin . He has a very special place in my heart.'

Police initially believed Carradine had committed suicide and were reluctant to comment on reports suggesting the actor may have died while performing an auto-erotic act.

Commander Somprasong Yenthuam said: 'All I can really say is that nobody else was involved.

We have checked the CCTV's and nobody else came in and out of his room.

'The room was also in perfect order. Nothing else seems to have been touched. There was some money lying around on a table and a bottle of drinking water and some water in a glass.

'His body has been taken to Chulalongkorn Hospital for a forensic examination but we expect they will find he died of asphyxiation.'

He said there was a footprint on the bed which did not match any of Carradine's shoes but it probably was not related to the inquiry.

Hospital's chief coroner Nantana Sirisap said: 'We are now running tests and then we will decide the cause of death.

'This certainly was not a natural cause of death.'

Carradine, whose career had recently undergone a renaissance after he appeared in Quentin Tarantino’s bloody two-part martial arts film saga Kill Bill, was in Thailand shooting his latest film, Stretch.

He had been staying at the luxury Swissitel Nai Lert Park since Tuesday.

The crew could not find him after he failed to turn up for a meal on Wednesday night and his body was discovered at 10am yesterday.

Aurelio Giraudo, the hotel's general manager, said Carradine checked into the hotel May 31 and he last saw him June 3.

He said Carradine chatted with staff and even played piano a few nights in the lobby as well as flute which the 'guests really enjoyed'.

The hotel, next to the British Embassy in Bangkok is famous for its shrine to fertility.

Visitors make offerings, in the form of phalluses, to the female Spirit of Tubtim who is believed to hover around a nearby canal.

Carradine's death echoes that of former INXS star Michael Hutchence who was found dead in a Sydney hotel in 1997.

The coroner returned a verdict of suicide but because of the lack of suicide note or history of depression he was believed to have died attempting an act of autoerotic asphyxiation.

Although Carradine was said to he happy at the time of his death, he had spoken of suicide in the past.

He also admitted he had considered shooting himself and did not fear death.

He wrote in his 1995 autobiography Endless Highway that he had tried to kill himself when he was five years old.

The book also documented his alcoholism and extensive use of drugs, from LSD to cocaine.

In a 2004 interview he said: 'I remember one time sitting in the window of the third or fourth floor floor of the Plaza Hotel for about half an hour, thinking about tipping off.

'I thought "who cares man? Why not just split"'.

He also said: 'There was a period in my life when I had a single action colt.45 loaded, in my desk drawer.

'And every night I'd take it out and think about blowing my head off - and the decide not to and go on with my life.'

Carradine got his big break in Kung Fu as Kwai Chang Caine, nicknamed Grasshopper, the soft-spoken monk and martial arts expert who travelled through America’s Old West spreading wisdom and battling bad guys.

The show captured the imagination of millions of youngsters. Phrases from Kung Fu such as ‘Snatch the pebble from my hand’ were endlessly repeated in the playground.

Children put ping-pong balls, which had been cut in half, in their eyes in imitation of the show’s blind character, Master Po.

Kung Fu was first screened in 1972 and spawned a film and numerous other offshoots.

Carradine’s portrayal of Caine earned him a nomination for an Emmy, U.S. TV’s highest honour. He left after three seasons.

He was married five times and had two daughters from previous marriages. His fifth wife was Annie Bierman, whom he married in 2004.

His brothers include the actor Keith Carradine.

A U.S. Embassy spokesman said Thai officials had confirmed that Carradine died either late on Wednesday or early yesterday morning.