NEW YORK, Aug 14 (Reuters) - NovaGold Resources Inc. (NG.TO) urged investors on Monday to reject a hostile $1.28-billion takeover offer from Barrick Gold Corp. (ABX.TO), saying the bid "significantly undervalues" the Canadian company's projects and its growth potential.

NovaGold (NG.A) said Barrick's $14.50 a share cash offer was not in the best interest of the company's shareholders and failed to reflect the value of NovaGold's 70-percent ownership of the Donlin Creek project in Alaska, which it described as one of the world's biggest gold deposits.

Shares of NovaGold closed up 2 percent at C$19.04 on the Toronto Stock Exchange on Monday and up 25 cents at $16.86 on Amex. Shares of Barrick, the world's biggest gold producer, closed 77 Canadian cents lower at C$34.35 in Toronto.

Read the complete story on reuters.com ...

Why is NovaGold's Success Important to You? We are at the very beginning of a long term bull market in natural resources -- oil and gas, farm land, water and precious and industrial metals. As prices of strategic commodities rise, large companies are using their rising cash flows and access to financial markets to buy smaller companies. This kind of corporate consolidation is traditionally how hot money and dirty players take over and/or sabotage the more responsible and smaller companies. Nowhere is the game dirtier that in the precious metals markets, where GATA has documented market manipulation to suppress prices -- thus making it easier and more profitable to consolidate precious metals inventories and take over smaller mining companies. We are at the crossroads. Will we use our money to build a diversified world where ownership and management of strategic resources is spread among the many and honors generations yet unborn? Or will we keep thinking we can make a quick buck by selling our resources to the Tapeworm without concern for the future? I am often asked about the environmental damage associated with mining. I believe that centralized debt based currency, derivative and financial systems and the organized crime and black budgets they nurture are responsible for most of the environmental damage on our planet. Thus actively decentralizing the precious metals market will do far more to protect and heal the environment than boycotting precious metals mining ever could, because it shifts power and wealth out of the Tapeworm. In fact, decentralizing the natural resources markets is absolutely crucial to saving our planet. Interestingly enough, the allegations against Barrick say that it is one of the largest synthesis of both -- dirty money and dirty environment. So the NovaGold-Barrick squabble is representative of a situation that we can expect to see many times, across these key sectors. And we can expect to be increasingly called on to make a choice that truly can make a difference. Who will our pocketbook back? David or Goliath? Solari's position will be unchanged over the next decade. We believe that diversified independent operators can produce far more wealth in the long run. Ultimately all the dirty money and dirty tricks in the world cannot get anything productive done on the ground. This takes good old fashioned hardworking, responsible management who pay attention to the nuts and bolts of their business as opposed to helping Wall Street and Washington rig markets. The authentic business leadership that protects our resources and our freedoms will grow in stature as broad based networks of self-organizing citizens withdraw our resources from large consolidating players and begin to act in our own strategic interest. Being part of bringing forth this revolution of hearts, minds and pocketbooks is the opportunity of a lifetime. We welcome you into the middle of it, looking to birth the lotus blossom of a new, more sustainable world up from the mud of market manipulation and the volatile, rising value of strategic resources. -- Catherine Austin Fitts

Learn more about GATA's support of NovaGold: http://www.GATA.org Don't let Barrick Steal NovaGold to Feed the Gold Suppression Scheme By Bill Murphy, Chairman http://www.gata.org Wednesday, August 9, 2006 Don't Let Barrick Acquire NovaGold Before Closing Gold Short, GATA Says International Press Release via Business Wire Monday, August 14, 2006