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Turkey's frantic gold rush points to a financial crisis

Section: Daily Dispatches

By Aykan Erdemir and John Lechner
The National Interest, Washington
Friday, January 8, 2021

The Turkish economy is "a train wreck in slow motion," in the words of one former central banker.

The Turkish lira, which lost 20 percent of its value against the U.S. dollar last year, was one of the worst-performing currencies in the world in 2020. Foreign currency reserves nosedived deep into the red if one accounts for Ankara's liabilities to local banks. And economy czar Berat Albayrak, son-in-law of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, hasn't been seen in public since he resigned via Instagram on Nov. 8.

... Dispatch continues below ...


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Asante Gold Announces Kubi 3D Model
Extends Gold Mineralizing System

Company Announcement via Globe Newswire
Thursday, July 2, 2020

VANCOUVER, British Columbia, Canada -- Asante Gold Corp. (CSE:ASE / Frankfurt:1A9 / U.S.OTC: ASGOF) has received the results of 3D magnetic modeling completed over its Kubi mining lease in the Ashanti Gold Belt in Ghana.

The results show that the Kubi Main Zone gold resource is intimately associated with and interfingers the western sheared contact of a magnetic high feature that plunges to more than 2 kilometers in depth. Here is the 3D model video:

http://www.asantegold.com/assets/Video/SEMSpitMagSmthCore.mp4

In Ghana, Africa's largest gold producer, many big mines are located along northeast-trending regional shear systems that exceed 250 kilometers in length. Studies indicate that the hydrothermal gold mineralizing system that generated the Ashanti Gold Belt deposits was "gigantic and extended to at least 10 to 15 kilometers in depth" (Schmidt Mumm et al., 1996). The Ashanti shear zone hosts the largest single gold resource in Ghana, the 66-million-ounce Obuasi mine. This major shear zone cuts Kubi 15 kilometers southwest of Obuasi. ...

... For the remainder of the announcement:

https://www.globenewswire.com/news-release/2020/07/02/2056982/0/en/Asant...



But an even better gauge of this slow-rolling economic crisis is the Turks’ frantic rush for gold. Since last year Turkish firms and retail investors almost tripled their gold holdings to $36 billion. This is in addition to the 3,000 to 5,000 metric tons of the metal they keep at home, worth between $186 billion to $310 billion at current market prices.

The rush to import gold to meet skyrocketing demand has wreaked havoc on Turkey's trade deficit, with the January-November shortfall widening to $45 billion, nearly doubling compared to last year.

Seasoned by prior episodes of hyperinflation, currency devaluation, and bank failures, which together destroyed fortunes overnight, Turks have developed an uncanny sense for risks ahead. In fact, the Turkish public's turn to gold may offer a better indicator of stress in the financial system than the usual macroeconomic indicators, which can predict the system's trajectory but not exact timing. ...

... For the remainder of the report:

https://nationalinterest.org/blog/buzz/turkey%E2%80%99s-frantic-gold-rus...

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http://www.gata.org/files/GATA-4-wine-bottles.jpg

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http://www.gata.org/files/FayJWineryVarietals.jpg

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Stuart Englert's "Rigged"

"Rigged" is a concise explanation of government's currency market rigging policy and extensively credits GATA's work exposing it. Ten percent of sales proceeds are contributed to GATA. Buy a copy for $14.99 through Amazon --

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-- or for an additional $3 and a penny buy an autographed copy from Englert himself by contacting him at srenglert@comcast.net.

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