South Africa police standoff with illegal gold miners escalates
The police sealed off access to the Buffelsfontein gold mine in Stilfontein several weeks ago to deny the miners access to food and other essentials.
Gold futures surged as much as $45 in Tokyo trade on Monday to a record $1,697.70 an ounce on demand for an investment haven and bad news from the US and Europe continued to pile up.
The dollar slumped following Standard & Poor’s downgrade of the US long-term credit rating from AAA.
Gold futures for December delivery was trading at $1,687, up $36 or 2,17% at 8:30 am Tokyo local time in electronic trading after reaching the all time high.
Businessweek quotes a London-based trader from UBS AG as saying “Gold will most likely be a sharp recipient of safe- haven flows. Our previous one- month forecast of $1,725 is likely to be easily met in the short term.”
