Will there be enough corn? "There is a collision course on the horizon, but when and how severe it is going to be, I don't know," said Doug Thompson, a corn and soybean grower near Kanawha, in north-central Iowa.

Quick Overview

• In Sydney Australia over the weekend, central bankers from the G-20 summit said central banks "will need" to raise rates to contain inflation.
  
  

• The Conference Board said Monday its index of leading economic indicators rose 0.2% in October, with six of the ten indicators showing a positive gain, after a revised gain of 0.4% a month earlier.
  
  

• State and local governments are experimenting with new ways of generating funds for highway work as gasoline taxes fail to produce enough revenue for such projects, the USA Today reported.
  
  

• German producer prices rose 0.3% in October and up 4.6% YoY

• Canada's wholesale sales totaled C$41.8 billion in September, down 1.6% from August.
  

• The USDA estimated Brazil's current coffee crop at 46.5 million bags, up 29% YoY.

Updates will resume November 18th.

Quick Overview

• The current economic downturn is "likely temporary," former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan said Monday, noting the worst of the housing market slump is likely past.
  
  

• CNBC reported that of the 407 S&P 500 companies that have reported third quarter results, 73% have been above expectations.
  

• Factory orders in Germany were down 2.5% in September, more than expected.
  

• Dow-Jones Newswire said Indonesia’s 2006 cocoa crop may only total 425,000 tons, down from 500,000 tons YoY.
  

GOP Must Go
The American Conservative

There may be little Americans can do to atone for this presidency, which will stain our country’s reputation for a long time. But the process of recovering our good name must begin somewhere, and the logical place is in the voting booth this Nov. 7. If we are fortunate, we can produce a result that is seen—in Washington, in Peoria, and in world capitals from Prague to Kuala Lumpur—as a repudiation of George W. Bush and the war of aggression he launched against Iraq.

White House slammed for Iraq nuke website
"It's sheer stupidity. Plus it's illegal. We violated our own treaty obligations in letting this out. This is clearly what is called RD--restricted data. This should not have been out there. It's highly dangerous, it's very useful--even like Iran, which is meeting some of the same technical challenges Iraq met in the Eighties. It should not have been out there. I'm absolutely convinced, and most people don't remember. But we went through this again in the spring. In the spring Congresman (Peter) Hoestra announced with (Sen.) Rick Santorum that we had found WMD in iraq. It was old mustard shells from the 1980s. They're desperate to prove a case."

Quick Overview

• U.S. companies added 92,000 workers in October, pushing the unemployment rate down to a five-year low of 4.4%.
  
  

• Canada's unemployment rate improved from 6.4% to 6.2% in October.
  

• The unemployment rate in the EU-12 remained unchanged at 7.8% in September.
  
  

• UK service index increased from 57.0 to 59.3 in October, morer than expected.
  

• China's central bank raised the required bank reserve ratio to 9.0% from 8.5%.

Only 50 years left' for sea fish There will be virtually nothing left to fish from the seas by the middle of the century if current trends continue, according to a major scientific study.

Quick Overview

• The U.S. Labor Department said that productivity was unchanged in the third quarter while labor costs were up 5.3% from a year ago.

• U.S. Factory orders were up 2.1% in September, less than expected.
  

• The Labor Department said that U.S. jobless claims were up 18,000 to 327,000.
  

• Bank of Japan Governor Toshihiko Fukui reiterated on Thursday that the central bank will adjust rates slowly, giving few clues on the timing of its next rise.
  

• Retail sales in Australia were up 0.1% in September.
  

• Manufacturing in Europe increased from 56.6 to 57.0.

• The European Central Bank kept its interest rate unchanged at 3.25%,

• FC Stone estimates the U.S. corn crop at 10.808 billion bushels, and Informa Economics predicted the crop at 10.729 billion bushels. This compares with the USDA’s October estimate of 10.905 billion bushels.
  
  

• The U.S. Department of Energy said that underground supplies of natural gas were down 9 billion cubic feet last week to 3.452 trillion cubic feet. Supplies are up 9% YoY.
  

• Total money market assets stood at $2.265 trillion for the week, the Investment Company Institute said.

U.S. NEAR THE BOTTOM IN PRIVACY STUDY


Leading surveillance societies in the EU and the World

Quick Overview

• The Institute of Supply Management's index of U.S. manufacturing dropped from 52.9 to 51.2 in October, weaker than expected.
  

• YoY U.S. Construction spending was up 2.9%
  

• Canada's Finance Minister said that he wants to begin taxing income-trust funds next year.
  

• Manufacturing in the U.K. dropped from 54.5 to 53.7 in October.
  

• The U.S. Department of Energy said that::
  Supplies of crude oil were up 2.0 million barrels last week to 334.3 million barrels.
  Supplies of unleaded gasoline were down 2.8 million barrels
  Supplies of heating oil supplies were down 1.5 million barrels
  

• U.S. Ethanol production totaled 329,000 barrels a day in August, up 69,000 barrels YoY. Demand was 385,000 barrels a day.
  
  
  

Bond bear Grant sees threat to asset-backed bonds Instead of worrying about an instrument's yield, fixed-income portfolio managers should worry if they are going to get paid, Grant said in a keynote presentation.

Low inflation rate? Some consumers beg to differ Sean Taylor, 34, an information technology consultant in Trenton, N.J., ticks off the changes in his bills in the past nine years: property taxes, now $9,000 a year, up 105%; heating oil, $238, up 109%. His wife, Carrie, a state employee, pays $87 a month for health care; nine years ago, it was free. His income varies from year to year. Her salary is $75,000, up from $45,000, or 67%.

Baghdad is under siege
Sunni insurgents have cut the roads linking the city to the rest of Iraq. The country is being partitioned as militiamen fight bloody battles for control of towns and villages north and south of the capital.
As American and British political leaders argue over responsibility for the crisis in Iraq, the country has taken another lurch towards disintegration.

Quick Overview

• The National Association of Purchasing Management-Chicago’s manufacturing index dropped from 62.1 to 53.5 in October, more than expected.
  
  

• U.S. Consumer confidence fell from 105.9 to 105.4 in October following an increase in September, the New York-based Conference Board said Tuesday.
  
  

• The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics said the employment cost index increased 1.0% in the third quarter and 3.3% from a year ago, the biggest gain in two years.
  

• Brazil announced that they will raise the ethanol content of their gasoline from 20% to 23%, starting on November 20th.
  
  

• Canada’s GDP was up 0.3% in August and up 2.2% YoY.
  
  

• A hard-hitting report on climate change published by the British government on Monday has no basis in science or economics, OPEC's Secretary-General Mohammed Barkindo said.
  
  

• Russia's state foreign debt, including former Soviet-era debt, shrunk to $50.1 billion, or 39.5 billion Euros as of October 1.

Bond Strategists: Japan's Insurers May Shun U.S. Treasuries
(Bloomberg) -- Japanese life insurers, who manage the equivalent of $1.6 trillion in assets, will cut holdings of U.S. Treasuries after the cost of protecting the investment against currency swings surged, according to Calyon Securities.
A reduction in purchases by Japanese investors, the largest overseas holders of U.S. sovereign debt, may push up U.S. Treasury yields, said Susumu Kato, chief strategist at Calyon. Japan held $644.2 billion of Treasuries at the end of August, more than in any other country.

Quick Overview

• China will likely see its trade surplus hit 150 bln $ for 2006, with foreign exchange reserves to exceed one trillion $ by the end of the year, the National Bureau of Statistics said.
  
  
  

• The U.S. Commerce Department said that personal incomes were up 0.5% in September, and consumer spending was up 0.1%.
  

• The Commerce Department said the core rate of personal consumption was up 2.4% YoY
  
  

Climate change 'brings huge cost'
Climate change could cut global growth by a fifth, costing up to £3.68 trillion in total, unless drastic action is taken, a review is to warn.
But taking action now would cost just 1% of global gross domestic product, economist Sir Nicholas Stern says.

GAO chief warns economic disaster looms
Their basic message is this: If the United States government conducts business as usual over the next few decades, a national debt that is already $8.5 trillion could reach $46 trillion or more, adjusted for inflation. That's almost as much as the total net worth of every person in America — Bill Gates, Warren Buffett and those Google guys included.
A hole that big could paralyze the U.S. economy; according to some projections, just the interest payments on a debt that big would be as much as all the taxes the government collects today.
And every year that nothing is done about it, Walker says, the problem grows by $2 trillion to $3 trillion.

Morgan Stanley, announced a $3bn plan to invest in carbon trading
The drive to tackle climate change gathered pace on Thursday as Morgan Stanley, the investment bank, announced a $3bn plan to invest in the carbon trading market amid mounting evidence that some US states are growing more sympathetic to international action.

Confession that formed base of Iraq war was acquired under torture: journalist An Al-Qaeda terror suspect captured by the United States, who gave evidence of links between Iraq and the terror network, confessed after being tortured, a journalist told the BBC

Quick Overview

• The U.S. Commerce Department said that its first estimate of real GDP was up an annual rate of 1.6% in the third quarter, the weakest performance in three years. Housing was cited as the main drag.
  

• The core rate of personal consumption expenditures was up 2.4% YoY in the third quarter.
  

• The University of Michigan's index of consumer sentiment increased from 85.4 to 93.6 in October, more than expected.
  

• The Australian Bureau of Agricultural and Resource Economics estimated their wheat crop at 9.5 million tons, down from 25 million tons a year ago.
  

• (Bloomberg) -- Hedge-fund managers and other large speculators placed a record amount of bets the yen will decline against the dollar, according to weekly data from the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission.
  

• Prime Minister Manmohan Singh Thursday said the Indian economy was moving at a rapid pace and hoped the rate of growth would reach 10 percent soon. 'At one time, eight to nine percent growth was unthinkable.
  

• FT-- The Bank of Japan and the European Central Bank are expected to keep their key policy interest rates unchanged at 0.25 per cent (on Tuesday) and 3.25 per cent (on Thursday) respectively but further monetary tightening can be expected from both before the end of the year.
  

Wheat lower in spite of world output warning
The IGC said a global deficit of about 64m tons was likely as world consumption was forecast to rise to a record 1,621 tons. In spite of the recent fall in energy prices and higher grain prices, demand from the ethanol sector was expected to rise by 20m tons to 67m tons, according to the IGC.

Cheney confirms that detainees were subjected to water-boarding
"It's a no-brainer for me," Cheney said at one point in an interview.

Quick Overview

• The Commerce Department reported the median price for a new home sold in September was $217,100, down 9.7 % from September 2005. This is the lowest median price for a new home since September 2004 and the largest year-over-year decline since December 1970.
  

• Sales of new homes rose by 5.3 percent to a seasonally adjusted annual rate 1.075 million homes This is second consecutive increase in sales following three months of declines.
  

• Durable goods orders posted their biggest increase in more than six years, rising 7.8% in September.
  
  

• First-time U.S. jobless claims rose 8,000 to 308,000 last week.
  
  

• Yuan central parity rate set at new high of 7.8940 to dollars versus 7.9007
  
  

• Zinc stocks on the London Metals Exchange fell 1,750 tons to 113,900 tons, the lowest level since 1991.
  
  

• The U.S. Department of Energy said that underground supplies of natural gas were up 19 billion cubic feet at 3.461 trillion cubic feet.

Quick Overview

• The Fed kept the federal funds rate unchanged at 5.25%, as expected.
  

• The National Association of Realtors said U.S. existing home sales were at an annual rate of 6.18 million units in September, down 1.9% MoM.
  

• The number of existing homes for sale dropped 2.4% to 3.75 million, a 7.3 month supply.
  

• The U.S. Department of Energy said that:
  Supplies of crude oil were down 3.3 million barrels to 332.3 million barrels.
  Supplies of unleaded gasoline were down 2.8 million barrels
  Supplies of heating oil were up 700,000 barrels.
  

• AWB Ltd. reduced its estimate of Australia's wheat crop from 13.5 to 10.0 million tons.
  

• Consumer prices in Australia were up 3.9% YoY,
  

• Business confidence in Germany increased from 104.9 to 105.3 in October, more than expected.
  

• Former Chinese central bank adviser Yu Yongding said that China should allow the yuan to appreciate faster and that China should abandon its export promotion policy.

Can Israel Last? Maybe.
Mr. Bush seems to be losing his wars. If I’m wrong, I’m wrong, which would probably be a good thing. But if I’m right, when the United States is forced out of Iraq, American influence in the region will decline precipitately. For at least a decade, and perhaps forever, the US will not send troops to the region. The Moslem world will regard itself, correctly, as having defeated the Great Satan, and will no longer fear Washington. American control of Pakistan will probably vanish and, bingo, there’s the Islamic Bomb. Presumably the American puppets, such as Saudi Arabia, will blow with the prevailing winds.

60 percent increase over the last five years in government corruption convictions .. the Justice Department generally tries to keep a low profile on government corruption cases in the months before an election to avoid unfairly influencing voters

Quick Overview

• Euro zone industrial orders rose by 3.7 % in August from July and by 14.3 % YoY.
  
  

• Rumors circulated that Japan may be about to intervene in the currency market to prop up the currency.
  
  

• Mexico's trade deficit was $1.35 billion in September, more than double expectations, as imports jumped almost 18 % YoY.
  

• The World Bank says India would become the third largest economy after China and the US by 2025.
  

• Corn prices in Chicago rose to the highest in more than two years on speculation demand for ethanol and U.S. grain exports will outpace supplies.

Quick Overview

• The U.S. central bank is expected to hold interest rates steady for the third straight month when it meets on Tuesday and Wednesday.
  

• Japan's top financial diplomat said on Monday he was not expecting further declines in the value of the yen , and added that he saw Japan's economy staying on a solid recovery path.
  

• Retail sales in Canada were up 1.0% in August.

• Bush put Social Security reform on his list of "big items" to deal with in the final two years of his presidency.

Panama votes for a bigger canal
VOTERS in Panama have decided, by a margin of four-to-one, to go ahead with a proposal to expand their famous canal. Although relatively few turned out for the referendum on Sunday October 22nd, the result was decisive, with some 78% in favour of the plan to open the route to more and bigger ships.

Quick Overview

• YoY Canada's consumer prices were up 0.7%
  

• GDP in the U.K. was up 0.7% in the third quarter and up 2.8% YoY
  

• OPEC late yesterday announced that it reached an agreement to cut production by 1.2 mln barrels a day starting on November 1st .
  

• Virginia became the 15th U.S. state with Asian rust in its soybean fields. Asian rust may impact spring plating decisions for soybeans .
  

• The USDA said there were 11.385 million head of cattle on feed, up 8.6% YoY.
  

• The USDA said there were 464 million pounds of frozen pork in storage, up 7.5% YoY. Frozen bellies in storage were 10.25 million pounds, down 27% YoY.
  
  

• The USDA said there were 779 million pounds of frozen orange juice concentrate in storage down 37% YoY.
  
  
  

Countdown Special Comment: Death of Habeas Corpus: “Your words are lies, Sir.”

Quick Overview

• The Philadelphia Federal Reserve's regional index of manufacturing fell from -.4 to -.7, weaker than expected.
  

• The Conference Board's U.S. index of leading indicators was up 0.1% in September to 137.7. Five of the ten components showed positive gains.
  

• YoY China's industrial production increased 16.1% in September.
  

• Retail sales in the U.K. were down 0.4% in September.
  

• The U.S. Energy Department said that underground supplies of natural gas were up 53 billion cubic feet to 3.442 trillion cubic feet. Supplies are up 13% YoY.
  

The limits of liberty: We're all suspects now
And here is the interesting thing that Havel put his finger on: no matter how brutal or ruthless the regime, the act of depriving people of their freedom starts the stopwatch on that regime's inevitable demise. What he was saying was that in modern times a state can only thrive in the fullest sense when individuals are accorded maximum freedom.

Britain has joined the US, China and Russia to block a proposed ban on cluster bombs in the wake of extensive use of the weapons during the war in Lebanon.
Israeli forces dropped an estimated 1m cluster bomblets in southern Lebanon this summer - 90% of which were dropped in the last three days of the conflict, a new report from Landmine Action said yesterday. The weapons have left a trail of unexploded munitions that is killing between three and four civilians each day and impeding relief work.

Group lists 10 most polluted places on Earth
The list was compiled by the New York-based nonprofit group the Blacksmith Institute, which said the world's pollution is sickening up to 1 billion people.

A Bush In Need Of Pruning
My impression is that much of the public wants authoritarian rule, or would be perfectly content with it if it even noticed its arrival. No, I can’t prove it. But what do most people care about beyond television on screens that grow ever larger, beyond porn, beer, and the competitive purchase of grander SUVs? I ask this not as a lifelong curmudgeon being tiresome (though doubtless I am both) but seriously. Who in a sprawling TV-besotted country cares about the Constitution? A comfortable police state is after all comfortable.

Gaza doctors say patients suffering mystery injuries after Israeli attacks "Bodies arrived severely fragmented, melted and disfigured," said Jumaa Saqa'a, a doctor at the Shifa hospital, in Gaza City. "We found internal burning of organs, while externally there were minute pieces of shrapnel. When we opened many of the injured people we found dusting on their internal organs."


Iraq war cost years of progress in Afghanistan - UK brigadier
The invasion of Iraq prevented British forces from helping to secure Afghanistan much sooner and has left a dangerous vacuum in the country for four years, the commander who has led the attack against the Taliban made clear yesterday.


Red wine can help prevent stroke damage: study Red wine might work to protect the brain from damage after a stroke and drinking a couple of glasses a day might provide that protection ahead of time, U.S. researchers reported on Sunday.

Quick Overview

• US consumer prices were down 0.5% in September and up 2.1% YoY. Excluding food and energy costs, prices were up 0.2% in September and up 2.9% YoY.
  

• US housing starts were stronger than expected and up 6% from the pace in August. So far in 2006, housing starts are down 9% YoY.
  

• Mortgage applications index was reported at -2.2%, adding to last week's decline of -5.5%.
  

• The Euro zone trade deficit with China rose to a record 47.6 bln Euros ($59.7 bln) in the year through July, up 24% YoY.
  

• Canada's composite index of leading indicators increased 0.4% in September.
  

• The unemployment rate in the U.K. for June to August was 5.5%.
  
  

• The U.S. Department of Energy said that:
  Supplies of crude oil were up 5.1 million barrels to 335.6 million barrels.
  Supplies of unleaded gasoline were down 5.2 million barrels
  Supplies of heating oil supplies were down 500,000 barrels.

Will the Supreme Court shackle new tribunal law?
The terror legislation set to be signed into law Tuesday by President Bush sits atop an ideological fault line that sharply divides the US Supreme Court and highlights the emerging power of Justice Anthony Kennedy.

Quick Overview

• U.S. Producer prices were down 1.3% in September, but up 0.9% YoY. Excluding food and energy costs, prices were up 0.6%.
  

• U.S. Industrial production was down 0.6% in September, weaker than expected and the biggest drop in a year.
  

• The U.S. Treasury Department said that net foreign purchases of long-term U.S. securities totaled $119.5 billion in August. U.S. purchases of foreign securities totaled $2.7 billion, resulting in a positive net capital inflow of $116.8 billion.
  

• Japans tertiary index, which measures spending in the services sector, rose 0.7% MoM. YOY the index rose 1.6 pct in August following a revised 2.0% increase in July.
  
  

• The Bank of Japan plans to beef up monitoring of "carry trades," and is concerned about how hedge funds and other investors are helping push down the yen, the Nihon Keizai newspaper reported.
  

• Consumer prices in the U.K. were up 2.4% in September.
  

• YoY consumer prices in the Euro-12 were up 1.7% in September.
  
  

• USAgnet: Czarnkow Sugar Ltd. says that Brazil is exporting so much ethanol, they may not meet domestic demand.
  
  

Quick Overview

• St Louis Federal Reserve President William Poole said on Monday the cost of higher inflation outweighed that of slower growth, although he also thought the news on prices has improved in recent months.
  
  

• The New York Federal Reserve's regional index of manufacturing increased from 13.8 to 22.9 in October, more than expected
  
  

• India's forex reserves came down by USD 30 million to stand at USD 165.275 billion.
  
  

• Canada's manufacturing shipments totaled C$49.8 billion in August, down 0.3% MoM
  

• Consumer confidence in Japan slipped from -6.7 to -11.0.
  

• The Bulgarian parliament voted unanimously to cut the country's company tax rate to 10 percent from January 1, 2007. The changes will make Bulgaria one of the two countries, along with Greek Cyprus, with the lowest corporate tax rate in the European Union when it joins the bloc next year.
  

• A study found that 87 percent of parents believe scholarships and grants will cover at least part of their children's undergraduate expenses, and nearly three-quarters think their children are "special or unique" enough to win a scholarship.
  
  
  

• Russia's central bank said it was starting to buy the Japanese currency for its reserves. The proportion of Russia's foreign exchange reserves currently invested in the yen was close to zero, but the bank would try to increase it to several percent of total reserves.
  
  
  

It's time to say sorry for Iraq's agony
On Friday, the UN High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) issued its bleakest assessment. Conflict has displaced 1.5 million people inside Iraq; a tide of refugees swells the 1.6 million living outside the country. The Lancet's estimate of 655,000 deaths since the conflict began is not only in a different stratosphere from Bush's ballpark figure of 30,000 'more or less'. It is also evidence of the asymmetry in the death roll of the war on terror.

In contrast to the attrition in Iraq, no US citizen has died in an Islamist attack on US soil since 9/11. Neo-con certainties about gun-barrel democracy have perished, naturally, and the graveyards of political theory bristle with their memorials. But, like a headless chicken, the strategy stumbles on. Dig in for victory. No British exit is likely to change that course any time soon.

China unlikely to overtake US economy: Treasury head
"I think that there's more risk on the downside for China, although I am an optimist," the Treasury secretary said.

Quick Overview

• Bank of Japan voted unanimously to keep the overnight call rate target at 0.25 %. BOJ Governor Fukui said that he "cannot rule out the possibility" of another rate hike this year. Market expectation for a rate hike this year has dropped to 25%.
  
  

• Bank of Japan reported producer prices in September rose 3.6 %, the most in 25 years.
  
  

• China’s current reserves surged to a record $988 billion at the end of September, up 28.5% YoY.
  
  

• YoY consumer prices in France were up 1.5% in September
  

• U.S. Retail sales were down 0.4% in September. Excluding autos, sales were down 0.5%. The weakness came mostly from lower gasoline prices.
  

• The University of Michigan's consumer sentiment index rose from 85.4 to 92.3 in October, more than expected.
  

• Argentina may limit wheat exports in an attempt to keep domestic prices down.
  

• BBC News reported that Ghana and the Ivory Coast are struggling to contain the spread of swollen shoot virus which is hitting their cocoa crops. The two countries account for over one-half of the world's cocoa production.
  

• (Bloomberg) -- Hedge-fund managers and other large speculators placed a record amount of bets the yen will decline against the dollar, according to weekly data from the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission.

Army chief: British troops must pull out of Iraq soon
General Sir Richard Dannatt, the head of the army, dropped a political bombshell last night by saying that Britain must withdraw from Iraq "soon" or risk serious consequences for Iraqi and British society.

Quick Overview

• The U.S. Census Bureau said that U.S. exports were up $2.7 billion in August to $122.4 billion while imports were up $4.6 billion to $192.3 billion. The rise in the U.S. trade deficit nudged the dollar off against the Euro and yen.
  

• U.S. Jobless claims were up 4,000 last week.
  

• Consumer prices in Germany were down 0.5% in September and up 1.0% YoY.
  

• Canada's exports were up 0.3% in August -- imports were down 0.6%.
  

• The U.S. Department of Agriculture cut its 2006-07 global wheat production estimate by 11 million tons to 585.1 million tons. This in turn led to a 7.1 million-ton drop to global ending stocks to 119.3 million tons, a 25-year low. The USDA lowered
  Australian 2006-07 wheat production to 11 million tons from its 19.5-
  million-ton estimate in September.
  
  

• The USDA's 2006-2007 U.S. ending stocks estimate for:
  Corn was reduced from 1.220 to .996 billion bushels.
  Soybeans were increased from 530 to 555 million bushels.
  Wheat was reduced from 429 to 418 million bushels.
  Sugar was reduced from 1.756 to 1.755 million tons.
  Cotton was increased from 4.60 to 5.40 million bales.
  

• The USDA's 2006-2007 world ending stocks estimate for:
  Corn was reduced from 92 to 90 million tons.
  Soybeans were increased from 52 to 55 million tons.
  Wheat was reduced from 126 to 119 million tons (the lowest stocks figure in 25 years)
  Cotton was increased from 47 to 52 million tons.
  
  

• The U.S. Department of Energy said that:
  Supplies of crude oil were up 2.4 million barrels.
  Supplies of unleaded gasoline were up 300,000 barrels.
  Supplies of heating oil supplies were down 1.8 million barrels.
  Supplies of natural gas were up 62 billion cubic feet.
  

Gold Rush Plunges Undersea as Miners Scour Pacific
Placer Dome Ltd., a Vancouver-based mining company later acquired by Toronto-based Barrick, invested $12 million in 2005 and 2006 to fund Nautilus's first tests. The company was founded in 1997 by Julian Malnic, an Australian writer of mining newsletters who acquired offshore exploration licenses from Papua New Guinea.
Nautilus went public on Canada's TSX Venture Exchange in May, raising C$25 million ($22.3 million). Neptune raised 9.3 million pounds ($17.6 million) on London's Alternative Investment Market in October 2005.
Barrick converted Placer Dome's investment into a 9.59 percent stake in Nautilus in August.
``Our Nautilus stake allows us to participate in the future upside,'' says Alex Davidson, executive vice president of exploration and corporate development at Barrick.

600,000 Dead in Iraq

Today the public health department at Johns Hopkins has released a new study of deaths in Iraq, based on a new larger sample of the population. Around 600,000 have died in Iraq since the U.S. attacked in the spring of 2003.