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Overseas buyers start new gold rush
By KAREN ARNOLD – Sunday, 01 February 2009
GOLD RUSH: New Zealand is poised for another gold rush but it’s unlikely anyone will be digging for their fortunes. Pictured is $100,000 worth of Kiwi gold.
New Zealandis poised for another gold rush but it's unlikely anyone will be digging for their fortunes.
New Zealand Mint head bullion trader Mike O'Kane said as the world recession deepened, more people wanted to safeguard their cash and saw the precious metal as an insurance policy.
As gold prices hit record levels, it's overseas buyers with money to spare who are turning their dollars into Kiwi gold.
O'Kane said that with the failures of large US investment banks, such as Bear Stearns and Lehman Brothers, demand for New Zealand gold increased.
The price of gold has doubled in the past two years and last week hit an all-time high, reaching $1745 an ounce. The failures coincided with NZ Mint doing a month's worth of transactions each day."
During the past two weeks one US buyer had bought $1 million in gold -about 570 coins -and was contracted to buy another $1m during the next fortnight.
"We've just started to see another surge in demand through fear and worry. "They're going to take that away with them.
"There's an Asian couple flying over to buy $500,000 worth," said O'Kane. NZ Mint would not reveal that buyer's identity for privacy reasons."
There have been two other recent $1m gold transactions one by a New Zealander. As well, there had been five $100,000-plus gold transactions in the the previous month. As well, there had been five $100,000-plus gold transactions in the the previous month.5cm high about the length of a ballpoint pen.
Fifty-four gold coins equals $100,000 worth of gold, and stacked on top of each other they are 13.
O'Kane said New Zealand was regarded as a place where gold would be kept safe. And while $1m in notes would be the size of a pallet, the same sum of gold would fit in a shoebox.
Not all countries manufactured gold bullion and some made it difficult to buy.
About half the gold bought at NZ Mint was kept there in secure storage; the rest was taken away by the owners, he said. O'Kane said once a trader placed an order, it was confirmed within 24 hours and delivered to the client within one to four weeks. NZ Mint, a privately owned company, tried to make the process as simple as possible. A year ago the average gold purchase was about $25,000 a time, he said.
The number of Kiwi gold buyers was also increasing."
O'Kane said the drop in the NZ dollar and the ever-steady demand for gold was driving the price up."
O'Kane said the drop in the NZ dollar and the ever-steady demand for gold was driving the price up.
MINT'S MOMENTS
* Fifty-four gold coins equals $100,000 worth of gold, and stacked they are 13.5cm high – about the length of a ballpoint pen.
* $1m in notes would be the size of a pallet, the same amount of gold coins would fit in a shoebox.
* NZ Mint buys refined gold from reputable suppliers throughout the world including Australia, Europe and Asia
* Once it arrives in New Zealand it is melted down and made into rough bars
* The bars are pressed repeatedly until they reach the desired coin thickness then discs are cut out and softened in an oven at temperatures of between 500 and 600degC.
* They are then "stamped" with a Kiwi on the top and map of New Zealand on the bottom of the coin
* A pure NZ Mint gold coin is the size of the old 50c piece.
* It weighs one troy-ounce = 31.1gms.
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Auckland commuters escape bus blaze
– Monday, 08 December 2008
CHAZ FOXALL/Supplied
BLAZE: A bus fire on Gowing Drive, Medowbank. Two commuters and the driver were on the bus when it went up in flames. No one was injured in the incident.
Fire Service spokesperson Jaron Phillips said the bus went up in flames in Gowing Ave, Meadowbank at about 8.
A small number of Auckland commuters had to flee for their lives earlier today after the city bus they were travelling on caught fire. He said the blaze was so intense calls were received from as far away as the North Shore.30am.
Fire trucks from Remuera and St Heliers attended the fire which left the bus severely damaged.
Investigations will continue throughout the day to find out how the fire was started. .
.No-one was hurt in the incident
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Climber had ‘no chance’
Saturday, 06 December 2008
Rescue came too late
Japanese mountain guide Kiyoshi Ikenouchi had no chance of surviving unprotected against the elements on Aoraki/Mt Cook, veteran climber Mark Inglis says.
Mr Ikenouchi, 49, was found dead, wrapped in a sleeping bag on the mountain face yesterday morning, an hour after his friend Hideaki Nara, 51, was flown to safety.
Mr Inglis, who lost his legs to frostbite in 1982 after spending 13 days in a crevasse in the same area, said the men would not have lasted long without their tent. The men had to abandon their tent near the summit on Thursday when it was crushed by snow..
"It's frustrating to think that [rescuers] came so close to saving the other man . It's a tragedy really," he said.. It went from a situation where they were nicely hunkered down and well equipped, but once they lost that tent it turned from a survivable situation to an extreme one. "[Mr Nara] was very lucky to survive."
At the mercy of 130kmh winds, Mr Ikenouchi kept talking to Mr Nara till he went silent about 1am yesterday.
"It's a reminder of how phenomenally harsh Mt Cook and New Zealand mountains are.
Mr Inglis said the men would have been lucky to hear a helicopter let alone realise the emergency provisions had been dropped and he compared the winds they would have felt to standing beside a speeding freight train.
Though a pack of emergency supplies – that included food, cookers, warm clothes and a radio – had been dropped right behind their tent on Wednesday, the men were not aware it was there. If it got hold, it would blow you right off the mountain.
"The wind reverberates right through you. ."
Conservation Department area manager Richard MacNamara said the rescue team was physically and emotionally exhausted after six days on standby.
The Japan Mountain Guides Association said he had been a professional guide in Japan for 10 years.
Mr Ikenouchi's family was reported to be planning to fly to New Zealand.
He is the 69th climber known to have died on New Zealand's highest peak. He had climbed Mt Aspiring in 2001 and Aoraki/Mt Cook in 2003.
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Rescued climber in ‘remarkable’ condition
at Mount Cook Village – Friday, 05 December 2008
SURVIVOR: Hideaki Nara is brought to Christchurch by Westpac Rescue Helicopter after his mountain ordeal.
Rescued climber airlifted to Christchurch
The climber rescued from Mt Cook/Aoraki this morning after a week-long ordeal which claimed the life of his guide is in "remarkable" condition, Christchurch Hospital staff say.
Hideaka Nara, 51, was airlifted to hospital this morning suffering frostbite, buthis climbing companionKiyoshi Ikenouchi, 49, perished overnight, just hours before the rescue helicopter arrived.
Christchurch Hospital staff saidNara was still undergoing tests this afternoon but he was in "remarkably good" condition.
The pairendured seven days at 3700m on the country's highest peak in ferocious weather conditions which prevented earlier rescue attempts.
Ikenouchi and Nara are understood to have lost their tent yesterday and may have lost a sleeping bag as well, leaving only one between them.
Despite suffering frostbite to his hands and face,Nara was able to walk to the helicopter.
The men spent last night in the open as their tent either became buried in snow or blew away, Police Inspector Dave Gaskin said.
But itmay not have made much of a difference in the end, as the pair were already very well equipped, he said.
Supplies were dropped near their camp yesterday, but Gaskin said rescuers confirmed this morning the pair did not know they were there."
Senior Constable Brent Swanson said an improvement in weather this morning had made the rescue possible.
"Indications are that, if anything, they were over-equipped and that may have been one of the reasons why they were very slow in the first two days of their trip.
"The outcome wasn't 100 per cent, but it was 50 per cent.
He said he was comfortable with the decisions made during the week…''
Pilot Nigel Gee said it had been a "text book" rescue thanks to better weather conditions..
It was "extremely hard" to know that Mr Ikenouchi died within hours of rescuers reaching him, he said.
DOC area manager Richard MacNamara said the week of waiting had been very stressful for the search team."
Mr Ikenouchi – who helped in a rescue on the mountain five years ago -is the 69th climber known to have died on New Zealand's highest peak, and the seventh Japanese.
"The only good thing to come out of it is that at least there is some closure for the family.
The slow progress meant they were caught out by a mountain storm and forced to bivouac at high altitude.
The pair were attempting Mt Cook's Grand Traverse, climbing from the Hooker Valley to the South Peak, summiting from there, before heading down to Plateau Hut.30am.
The conditions finally cleared this morning and the rescue team flew in by helicopter at 5.
"It's pretty perilous sort of stuff," said Gaskin.
"It's pretty perilous sort of stuff," said Gaskin.
– with
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Fonterra “should have known”
By ADAM DUDDING – Sunday, 21 September 2008
Scandal taints Fonterra
Fonterra andNew Zealand embassy staff in China failed to notice the looming scandal over melamine-contaminated baby formula despite months of rumours on popular internet sites, and a TV news programme about babies falling ill after drinking milk products.
And a Christchurch political scientist says Fonterra's lack of understanding of the Chinese political and business environment meant the dairy giant was out of its depth before it had even bought its 43% shareholding in China's largest dairy company, Sanlu, in late 2005 for $US107m. Last night a Fonterra spokesman reiterated CEO Andrew Ferrier's statement that Fonterra China had no knowledge of any problems with Sanlu products until August 2.
Four children have died from drinking Sanlu products contaminated with the industrial chemical melamine, used by suppliers to disguise watered-down milk, and more than 6000 have been made sick.
But Anne-Marie Brady, a specialist in Chinese politics at the University of Canterbury, said it was remarkable that a huge company such as Fonterra failed to learn of problems at Sanlu through other channels.
Sanlu had been fielding complaints from worried parents as early as March, was approached by health authorities in June, and conducted its own tests for contaminants in July, but Ferrier said none of Fonterra's three directors on the seven-person board of Sanlu was informed before August 2.
In July, Hunan TV, which screens on cable TV nationally, made a programme about an epidemic of kidney damage in infants. Despite strict controls of official media by the Communist government, important stories still come to light via the internet and smaller outlets. Twenty-two Chinese milk companies are now implicated in the scandal. To avoid censorship it didn't name Sanlu, but signalled the connection by using Sanlu brand packaging as a backdrop to the report. "You could say `we specialise in the dairy industry please comb the media and tell us what's going on'.
Even if Fonterra didn't have staff who spoke Chinese, said Brady, there are organisations in China that could do the work.
Last night Foreign Affairs spokesman David Courtney said while Mfat "informally" monitors international media, it does not engage in constant monitoring of all international media sources."
Brady also criticised the New Zealand embassy in Beijing for failing to spot an issue that is bound to have huge effects on New Zealand's interests in China.
Brady said the Sanlu scandal is a demonstration too of the lack of understanding by New Zealand businesses of the complexities of Chinese commerce and politics. He added "China has a vast number of media outlets [television, press, magazines and blogs] and the number is growing". Tian would have been privy to classified Communist Party edicts that negative reports on food safety be censored, and this may have kept her from passing news about contaminated milk to Fonterra. She points to the multiple roles held by Sanlu's chairwoman, Tian Wenhua, who was also secretary of the company's Communist Party chapter.
Last night Fonterra's three Sanlu directors two New Zealanders and a mainland Chinese national were believed to be in China.
A spokesman said Fonterra "entered its business partnership with Sanlu with careful consideration of all the factors influencing its investment political and cultural as well as the strictly business due-diligence issues".
. Although a media report yesterday said Trade Minister Phil Goff had talked to Ferrier about assuring their safety, Mfat said Fonterra had not approached it about helping directors leave China