US stock futures were down early Monday on the deteriorating situation in Eastern Ukraine.At the same time,the price of the safe haven gold as well as oil were rising as this crisis in Eastern Europe seems to be careening off a cliff,and a contentious emergency session of the UN Security Council to discuss the matter provided little basis for optimism.
Asian stocks were also chagrined by Ukraine's violent unrest,and by how the rising yen is weighing on Japanese shares.The MSCI Asia-Pacific index was virtually flat,up just 0.02%.*
London home prices have hit a record high as the supply of homes dwindles.London job vacancies in the financial sector rose 10% in March.*
The Chinese company Minmetals Group is buying a Glencore copper project in Peru for 5.85 billion dollars.A survey shows China's Q1 GDP was up 7.3% on the year.*
Retired Air Chief Marshall Angus Houston,head of the Joint Agency Coordination Centre,held a news conference in Perth,Australia to sum up where we are in the hunt for the lost flight MH-370 on day 38 of the search,which is eight days beyond the guaranteed battery life of the airliner's flight data recorder.The experts have determined that the Ocean Shield will cease attempting the detection of further signals from the missing plane's black boxes later today,and will start missions with the Blue Fin 21 autonomous underwater vehicle,which generates a 3D,high resolution map of the ocean floor.The first of the 24 hour missions will cover 40 square kilometers with the vehicle's sidescan sonar.Use of this vehicle may not result in detection of the aircraft's wreckage.
Also,the Ocean Shield detected an oil slick 5500 meters downwind of the site of the underwater search.Two litres of the oil has been collected.It will be a number of days before it can be returned and definitively identified.
The chance of recovering any floating material has greatly diminished,and it will be necessary to consult with our partners to determine the way ahead.The air and surface search will be concluded in the next two days.
It looks like the Blue Fin 21 is more than adequate to the task.It's reallly up to the people on the spot to determine where we go next.We start with the four locations,and then we go outward from there.It's really important to give flexibility to the people who are doing the search.They're the experts.The first mission will be a quite intensive search.I would not term it as a long shot,but as a promising lead that needs to be investigated.That's how it's done,believe me.That's the business of search and recovery,search and rescue.
This area we're in is under the seventh aircraft ping detected by Inmarsat.This is an area that is unknown to man.It's almost flat and rolling,with a lot of silt on the bottom.The layers of silt can complicate the search.We're actually gathering information on the search environment all the time,and that goes into the calculation of where to go next
The oil slick is very close to where the transmissions are coming from.We don't think its from the ships,so it's something that must be investigated.It can't be tested at sea.
The Air France wreckage of five years ago was at 3,000 meters;we're talking about 4,500 meters.Don't be over-optimistic;be realistic,ACM Houston advised.*
American Bubba Watson,35,donned his second green jacket in three years as winner of The Masters major golf tournament in Augusta,Georgia.His compatriot Jordan Spieth,20,and Sweden's Jonas Blixt,29,tied for second,and Miguel Angel Jimenez of Spain,54,the oldest man in the field,finished fourth.
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