Baltic Dry Index. 617 -18 Brent Crude 26.17
Spot Gold 1698
Coronavirus Cases 04/5/20
World 3,536,432
Deaths 248,291
"Curiouser and
curiouser!"
The Blame Game, with apologies
to Lewis Carroll and Alice.
The big story, it
seems, is the rising blame game on the coronavirus crisis. America blames China,
China blames America.
President Trump threatens
more sanctions on China, his aides have even suggested cancelling the US Treasury
instruments held by China, although doing that would set a precedent of default
on all USA debt. China today, Germany tomorrow, everyone else the day after.
For more on the
very complicated coronavirus crisis scroll down to the Covid-19 section with an
interesting scoop by Newsweek and much more.
Below, May gets
off to a dismal start.
Dollar edges up, Asian stocks slip as U.S.-China tensions flare
May 4, 2020 / 1:09
AM
SINGAPORE (Reuters) - The dollar inched
higher, stock markets struggled for traction and oil fell on Monday as a
U.S.-China spat over the origin of the coronavirus put the brakes on optimism
about an economic re-start as countries around the world ease restrictions.
In reduced trade, with China and Japan on holiday, U.S. stock futures ESc1 fell 1.7% and U.S. crude CLc1 tumbled 7%. The safe-haven U.S. dollar rallied to one-week highs against the risk sensitive Australian and New Zealand dollars. [AUD/]
South Korea's KOSPI .KS11 fell, Hong Kong's Hang Seng .HSI returned from a two-session holiday with a 3.5% drop, while Australia's ASX 200 eked out a 0.5% gain. [.HK]
The moves extended a dour start in May which began on Friday with bleak U.S. data and the threat of fresh trade-war hostilities between the world’s two biggest economies.
U.S. President Donald Trump and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo added to worries with fresh efforts to pin blame for the pandemic on China, where the new coronavirus outbreak is believed to have originated.
The latest salvo came from Pompeo on Sunday who said there was “a significant amount of evidence” that the virus emerged from a laboratory in the central Chinese city of Wuhan. [nL1N2CL089]
Pompeo did not provide evidence, or dispute a U.S. intelligence conclusion that the virus was not man-made. But the comments double down on Washington’s pressure on China as U.S. deaths and economic damage mount.
“The risk of a pullback has increased this week,” said Chris Weston, head of research at Melbourne brokerage Pepperstone.
More
Japan's PM expected to extend state of emergency until end-May - NHK
May 4, 2020 /
3:56 AM
TOKYO (Reuters) - Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe is set to extend
the country’s state of emergency on Monday until the end of May, public
broadcaster NHK said.
The government is also expected to determine new prevention measures for
the coronavirus outbreak that has infected around 15,000 people and killed more
than 500 in the country.
Abe is expected to explain the reasoning behind the extension of the
state of emergency, which is now due to expire on Wednesday, at a news
conference in the evening, NHK said.
The government may also ease some of the current coronavirus-related
constraints on economic activity by allowing places with relatively low
infection risks, such as parks, to re-open, even in hard-hit prefectures.
The state of emergency gives governors in those prefectures the
authority to request residents to stay at home and businesses to close. There
are, however, no penalties for non-compliance.
The virus-triggered slump in business activity is threatening to throw
the world’s third-largest economy into a deep recession, prompting calls for
more government spending.
Japan’s parliament last week approved an extra budget to fund a record
$1.1 trillion stimulus package.
Spanish GDP, pummelled by coronavirus pandemic, to contract 9.2% in 2020
May 1, 2020 / 9:21
AM
MADRID (Reuters) -
Spain’s gross domestic product (GDP) will contract 9.2% in 2020, surpassing the
fall during the country’s Great Recession of 2008-2013, Economy Minister Nadia
Calvino said on Friday, as the coronavirus pandemic wrought havoc on the
economy.
GDP is expected to recover in 2021 and expand 6.8%, Calvino said.
The economy minister said she expected an “asymmetric V-shape recovery,
with the deepest decrease in the second quarter and then a strong and gradual
recovery in the second half of the year”.
“Despite uncertainty, the government preferred to make forecasts more
pessimistic and more prudent, which is more responsible when doing that kind of
forecasts”, Calvino told a news conference.
Spanish government expectations are worse than IMF predictions but
alligned with recent Bank of Spain projections for 2020.
In the last two weeks of March, almost 900,000 jobs were lost.
On Feb. 11, prior to the imposition of a nationwide lockdown to counter
the pandemic, Calvino had forecast 2020 GDP growth at 1.6% in the previous
budget draft sent to Brussels to meet the EU fiscal schedule. April 30 was the
last day for EU members to send an updated version of that budgetary plan.
Spain’s current budget is an extension of the 2018 bill, approved by
previous conservative leader, Mariano Rajoy. The political fragmentaion in
Spain - which has seen four elections in four years - makes it extremely
difficult to pass a new budget.
The government also revised the 2020 deficit forecast to 10.34% and a
2020 debt to GDP ratio at 115.5%. This compared to a deficit goal of 1.8% of
GDP given in February.
More
Malaysia's March exports fall 4.7% year-on-year, smaller drop than forecast
May 4, 2020 /
5:17 AM
KUALA LUMPUR (Reuters) - Malaysia’s exports fell 4.7% from a year
earlier in March, amid coronavirus-related movement restrictions, government
data showed on Monday.
The decline, however, was smaller than the 8% fall forecast by analysts
surveyed by Reuters. Exports in February had risen 11.8%, the strongest on-year
growth in 16 months.
Imports were down 2.7% year-on-year, after surging 11.3% in February.
The trade surplus in March narrowed slightly to 12.3 billion ringgit
($2.84 billion) from 12.6 billion ringgit in the previous month.
U.S. beef output is down way more than shutdowns suggest
May 2, 2020
(Bloomberg) -- American beef output is down a lot more than
plant closures would have you believe -- a sign that slowdowns at facilities
will continue to keep meat supplies tight even when some production lines
reopen.
Cattle slaughter
dropped 37% this week from a year ago, U.S. Department of Agriculture data
show. That far outstrips the 10% to 15% in capacity that’s been halted with
meat plants closed after coronavirus outbreaks among employees. Hog slaughter was
down 35%, also topping the shutdown figure of 25% to 30%.
While many plants have stayed open, they’ve still been forced to slow
output as producers combat a loss of labor. Social-distancing measures will
also likely keep output trailing normal levels even as facilities reopen under
President Donald Trump’s executive order.
Already, some grocers are beginning to ration supplies as the virus
forces unprecedented disruptions in meat processing. Kroger Co., the nation’s
biggest traditional supermarket chain, on Friday said it was limiting purchases
of ground beef and fresh pork “at select stores.” Wholesale prices for both the
meats have surged, and it’s starting to translate into higher bills at the
retail level.
This week, 425,000 cattle were slaughtered, down 8.6% from last week, according to USDA estimates. For hogs, 1.545 million were slaughtered, down 22% from a week earlier.
Get Used to Expensive Meat With Supply Woes Lasting All Year
There are signs slaughter rates will continue to stay low.
Top pork producer Smithfield Foods Inc. is reopening a hog-processing plant in South Dakota on Monday that had been closed since April 12, according to Kooper Caraway, president of Sioux Falls AFL-CIO, which represents workers at the facility.
The company was asking 250 employees to return, according to the union. That’s down from 3,700 workers normally, with some 1,000 workers either sick with the virus or in quarantine. Smithfield didn’t reply to requests for comment on the reopening.
April Jobs Report Likely to Show Highest Unemployment Rate on Record
Labor Department figures, due Friday, are expected to indicate biggest monthly job loss
May
3, 2020 10:00 am ET
April’s
employment report, to be released Friday, will almost certainly show that the coronavirus
pandemic inflicted the largest one-month blow to the U.S. labor market on
record.
The losses in jobs would produce the highest unemployment rate since records began in 1948, eclipsing the 10.8% rate touched in late 1982 at the end of the double-dip recession early in President Reagan’s first term. The monthly number of jobs lost would be the biggest in records going back to 1939—far steeper than the 1.96 million jobs eliminated in September 1945, at the end of World War II.
Combined with the rise in unemployment and the loss of jobs in March, the new figures will underscore the labor market’s sharp reversal since February, when joblessness was at a half-century low of 3.5% and the country notched a record 113 straight months of job creation.
Even
so, the count of jobs cut and the unemployment rate will appear less dire than
implied by the recent surge in people seeking unemployment benefits because of
the different ways the figures are tallied.
Taken
together, the figures paint a grim picture of job losses since the pandemic
prompted widespread
closures of businesses to curb the spread of infection.
---- Arizona State University economist Alexander Bick conducts online surveys attempting to mirror the jobs report every two weeks. He estimates the unemployment rate in the April 12-18 week was 16.2%, down from 20.2% in late March. He attributes the decline to Americans dropping out of the labor force.
“Just because you’re not counted as unemployed doesn’t mean you don’t want a job,” he said. “And a lot of people fall in that category now. In times like these, it’s better to look at the employment rate.”
More
“Why, sometimes
I’ve believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast.”
Mike Pompeo, with
apologies to Lewis Carroll, and Alice.
Covid-19 Corner
Though
hopefully, we are passing the peak of new cases, at least of the first
SARS-CoV-2 outbreak, this section will continue until it becomes unneeded.
First, the Newsweek scoop, the
emerging Covid-19 lab accidental release story. Just why was the USA conducting
such reckless research in China in the first place?
Too hot to handle in a US level
4 biosafety lab in case of accidental release?
Something more sinister in the
deep state? Expecting an accidental release from China’s only, but poorly rated,
level 4 lab to destroy China?
Dr. Fauci Backed Controversial Wuhan Lab with Millions of U.S. Dollars for Risky Coronavirus Research
By Fred GuterlOn 4/28/20 at 2:57 PM EDT
Dr. Anthony Fauci is an adviser to President Donald Trump
and something of an American folk hero for his steady, calm leadership during
the pandemic crisis. At least one poll shows that Americans trust
Fauci more than Trump on the coronavirus pandemic—and few scientists are
portrayed on TV by Brad Pitt.But just last year, the National Institute for Allergy and Infectious Diseases, the organization led by Dr. Fauci, funded scientists at the Wuhan Institute of Virology and other institutions for work on gain-of-function research on bat coronaviruses.
In 2019, with the backing of NIAID, the National Institutes of Health
committed $3.7 million over six years for research that included some
gain-of-function work. The program followed another $3.7 million, 5-year
project for collecting and studying bat coronaviruses, which ended in 2019,
bringing the total to $7.4 million.
Many scientists have criticized gain of function research, which
involves manipulating viruses in the lab to explore their potential for
infecting humans, because it creates a risk of starting a pandemic from
accidental release.
SARS-CoV-2 , the virus now causing a global pandemic, is believed to
have originated in bats. U.S. intelligence, after originally asserting that the
coronavirus had occurred naturally, conceded last month that the pandemic may
have originated in a leak from the Wuhan lab. (At this point most scientists
say it's possible—but not likely—that the pandemic virus was engineered or
manipulated.)
Dr. Fauci did not respond to Newsweek's requests for comment. NIH
responded with a statement that said in part: "Most emerging human viruses
come from wildlife, and these represent a significant threat to public health
and biosecurity in the US and globally, as demonstrated by the SARS epidemic of
2002-03, and the current COVID-19 pandemic.... scientific research indicates
that there is no evidence that suggests the virus was created in a
laboratory."
Morehttps://www.newsweek.com/dr-fauci-backed-controversial-wuhan-lab-millions-us-dollars-risky-coronavirus-research-1500741
Next, the detailed take down on this dangerous, reckless type of research. Dr. Martenson’s take down starts about six minutes in to his latest video update.
Bombshell! Covid-19 Virus Lab-Made? Fauci Connected?
A recent Newsweek report raises an awfully lot of urgent and important questions
by Adam Taggart Friday, May 1, 2020, 5:18 PM
One of the more acutely-asked questions since the covid-19 pandemic broke out has been: Is the virus man-made?Debate on the matter has been wild and furious. After much investigation, Chris is now weighing in on the heels of an explosive Newsweek report.
Newsweek reveals that as recently as last year, the US funded scientists at the Wuhan Institute of Virology focused on conducting ‘gain of function’ research on bat coronaviruses.
The source of that funding? The National Institute for Allergy and Infectious Disease, headed by…..(drumroll please)….Dr Anthony Fauci, lead medical expert for America’s Covid-19 presidential task force.
Now, this doesn’t mean the virus was lab-engineered as a bio-weapon. But it does suggest a naturally-occuring bat virus could have been artificially accelerated along certain vectors.
Of course, this raises an awfully lot of urgent and important questions:
Scroll down and click on the video
https://www.peakprosperity.com/bombshell-covid-19-virus-lab-made-fauci-connected/
Finally, the US scripted
version, it’s all China’s fault even though this “research” was bought and paid
for by the USA. Even so, the Communist Party of China is its own worst enemy.
Inside the Early Days of China’s Coronavirus Coverup
The dawn of a pandemic—as seen through the
news and social media posts that vanished from China’s internet.
05.01.2020 07:00
AM
----Unable
to contain her anger, Yue took a screenshot of Xiao’s post and immediately
posted it on her WeChat Moments. “Look what is happening in Wuhan!” she wrote.
Then she finally drifted off.
The next morning, when she opened WeChat, a single message appeared: Her
account had been suspended for having “spread malicious rumors” and she would
not be able to unblock it. She knew at once that her late-night post had
stepped on a censorship landmine.
What she couldn’t have realized, though, was that she had posted her
screenshot at what seems to have been a turning point in China’s handling of
the epidemic: Over the previous two weeks, the government had allowed what felt
like an uncharacteristic degree of openness in the flow of information out of
Wuhan. But now the state was embarking on a campaign of censorship and
suppression that would be remarkable even by the standards of the Chinese
Communist Party.
Over the past
several weeks, as the number of new cases in China has tapered off and
lockdowns have lifted, China has been positioning itself as a global leader in
the fight against the coronavirus pandemic. It has vigorously promoted the
narrative that its unprecedented quarantine measures bought time for the
world—and that much of the world then botched and squandered that head start.
Now, the
story goes, China has again come to the rescue as it
shares its expertise, experience, and equipment.
To be sure, China did eventually take extraordinary and painful steps to
quell its domestic outbreak. But it has also taken extreme measures to curate
the information that has emerged from ground zero of the pandemic.
Over the last month or so, China’s openness with the rest of the
world—or lack thereof—in the early days of the pandemic has become the subject
of intense geopolitical debate. “The reality is that we could've been better
off if China had been more forthcoming,” Vice President Mike Pence told CNN in
early April, when asked why the Trump administration had gotten off to such a
late start in taking the virus seriously. The debate has become a strange and
strained one, given that whatever China did or did not cover up, the US still
squandered its chance to prepare for the inevitable even after Beijing’s
warnings had become loud and clear.
Moreover, it wasn’t the rest of the world that Beijing was most intent
on keeping in the dark. Nowhere has China been more aggressive in its war for
control of the coronavirus narrative than it has been at home. A vivid and
human picture of that information war emerges if you examine all the stories
and posts that have been wiped off of the Chinese internet since the outbreak
began—which is exactly what I’ve been trying to do for the past few months.
Seasoned journalists in China often say “Cover China as if you were
covering Snapchat”—in other words, screenshot everything, under the assumption
that any given story could be deleted soon. For the past two and half months,
I’ve been trying to screenshot every news article, social media post, and blog
post that seems relevant to the coronavirus. In total, I’ve collected nearly
100 censored online posts: 40 published by major news organizations, and close
to 60 by ordinary social media users like Yue. In total, the number of Weibo
posts censored and WeChat accounts suspended would be virtually uncountable.
(Despite numerous attempts, Weibo and WeChat could not be reached for comment.)
More
Chinese activists detained after sharing censored coronavirus material on crowdsourcing site Github
·
Source close to Beijing-based trio says they are
being held an at unknown location on suspicion of ‘picking quarrels and
provoking trouble’
·
The three were contributors to a project that
aimed to preserve material censors had tried to wipe from the web
Phoebe Zhang in Shenzhen Published:
10:24pm, 25 Apr, 2020
Three Chinese volunteers who helped to publish censored Covid-19
articles on Github, the world’s largest open-source website, have been detained
by police at an unknown location, according to a source close to them.
The trio – Cai Wei, his girlfriend, a woman surnamed Tang, and Chen Mei
– were contributors to a crowd-sourced project known as Terminus2049 that began
in 2018 and collected articles that had been removed from mainstream media
outlets and social media.
Microsoft-owned Github lets programmers collaborate on code, but has
increasingly become a haven for Chinese activists who want to circumvent the
Great Firewall to publish censored content.
There are other archives on GitHub that collect coronavirus-related
articles and personal accounts found on mainstream and social media, and some
of these projects say they hope to keep a record to help people better
“understand the epidemic and the people affected by it”.
Terminus2049 appeared to be blocked in mainland China on Saturday.
The three Beijing-based volunteers went missing on April 19, the source,
who declined to give her name for fear of retaliation, told the South China
Morning Post. Their families and friends then called the police, who
initially denied knowledge of their whereabouts.
“About five days later, the families of Cai and Tang received official
notices from the Chaoyang district bureau of the Beijing police,” the source
said. “During the first few days they did not admit they took them.”
More
“If I had a world of
my own, everything would be nonsense. Nothing would be what it is, because
everything would be what it isn’t. And contrary wise, what is, it wouldn’t be.
And what it wouldn’t be, it would. You see?”
Dr. Fauci, with
apologies to Lewis
Carroll, and Alice.
Technology Update.
With events happening
fast in the development of solar power and graphene, I’ve added this section.
Updates as they get reported. Is converting sunlight to usable cheap AC or DC
energy mankind’s future from the 21st century onwards.
Note: though SRG
Mining’s Exec Chairman was generous to send me the link and I return the
courtesy, I have no link to SRG Mining nor to his other interesting Canadian
precious metals company Maya Gold and Silver Inc. Oh to be 23 years old again
arriving in New York City.
Graphene ink may be used to fight coronavirus
MINING.COM Staff Writer |
May 1, 2020 | 6:30 am
Zen Graphene Solutions (TSXV: ZEN) announced that it has launched an
international collaboration with UK-based Graphene Composites to fight the
covid-19 pandemic.
The initiative involves the development of a potential virucidal
graphene-based composite ink that can be applied to fabrics, including N95 face
masks and other personal protective equipment for significantly increased
protection.
In a press release, the companies said that once the development, testing, and confirmation of the graphene ink’s virucidal ability have been completed, the ink will then be incorporated into fabrics used for PPE.
Zen’s contribution to the project is based on the synthesis of a silver nanoparticles-functionalized graphene oxide ink at its lab in Guelph, Ontario. According to the company, researchers have proven that the ink is effective in killing earlier strains of coronavirus.
In recent weeks, Zen started to engineer processes for the manufacturing of products based on its trademarked Albany Pure Graphene, which is sourced from graphite extracted at the Albany deposit in Ontario.
Testing of the substance’s ability to kill SARS-CoV-2 will be conducted at Western University’s ImPaKT Facility Biosafety Level 3 lab in Ontario. In addition, the graphene ink will be tested to kill influenza A and B viruses at Biosafety Level 2 labs in the UK and US.
“The development of this potential covid-19 virucidal graphene ink is coming at a crucial time to provide effective PPE supplies for the safety of frontline workers and hospital staff,” Francis Dubé, Zen’s CEO, said in the media brief.
“The current N95 masks trap the virus but don’t kill it. Our testing will demonstrate if the graphene ink is an effective virucide which would kill the virus as this could make a big difference to people’s safety. We have been very impressed by the Graphene Composites team and look forward to continued collaborations.”
Welcome to SRG Mining
SRG Mining Inc. – (TSXV.SRG) is a Canadian-based resource company with the goal of creating shareholder value by becoming a leader in the production and delivery of low-cost, quick-to-market, quality graphite.SRG is focused on developing the Lola graphite deposit, which is located in the Republic of Guinea, West Africa. The Lola Graphite occurrence has a prospective surface outline of 3.22 km2 of continuous graphitic gneiss, one of the largest graphitic surface areas in the world. SRG owns 100% of the Lola Graphite Project.
Management is also very optimistic about the nickel-cobalt-scandium deposit, known as the Gogota deposit, located on the same permit as the Lola graphite deposit. SRG will be resuming activities on the Gogota deposit and expects to file a National Instrument (“NI”) 43-101 compliant maiden mineral resource estimate in 2018.
SRG’s board of directors and management team are seasoned resource industry professionals with extensive experience in the exploration, the development and the realization of world-class mining projects in Africa, North America and Europe. Management’s technical expertise also includes graphite-specific mining, processing and development. SRG is committed to operating in a socially, environmentally and ethically responsible manner.
read more
http://srggraphite.com/
About Maya Gold & Silver
Maya Gold & Silver Inc. (MAYA);(TSX:MYA) is a Canadian listed
mineral exploration and development company.
The Company is focused on the acquisition, exploration and evaluation of
mineral properties located in Morocco. Our Flagship projects are Zgounder
silver mine, located 260Km east of the coastal city of Agadir, within the
Proterozoic Siroua Massif of the Anti-Atlas Range. And Boumadine polymetallic
deposit, located within the Ougnat Proterozoic window in western Morocco.
The Company also owns several mining assets such as: Amizmiz
property, the Azegour property, the Mining permit No 233263 and the Touchkal
property. In addition to this, the company owns La Campana Property,
located 70 kilometers east of the city of Mazatlan and close to Baluarte River
in Mexico.
More
21st
century adage: Is that true, or did you hear it on the BBC?
The Monthly Coppock Indicators finished April
DJIA: 24,346 +26 Down. NASDAQ: 8,890 +162 Up.
SP500: 2,912 +89 Down.
The NASDAQ has rebounded to
up. The S&P and the DJIA remain down.
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