Month: December 2013

A year which showed that central planning works (for the fifth year in a row and probably can continue to “work” at least a little longer – in the USSR it surprised everyone with its longevity before it all came crashing down), is drawing to a close. This is what has happened so far on the last trading session of 2013. As market participants head in to the New Year period, volumes are particularly thin with closures being observed across Europe with only the CAC, IBEX and FTSE 100 trading out of the major European indices, with German, Switzerland, Italy and the Nordic countries are already closed. The FTSE and CAC are both trading in the green with BP leading the way for the FTSE earlier in the session after reports the Co. have asked a federal appeals court to block economic loss payments in its settlement of the Gulf of Mexico oil spill. European stocks rise, with real estate, travel & leisure leading gains. Retail shares underperform as Debenhams slumps following its IMS. A number of major markets will close early today. The euro falls against the dollar. Fixed income market are particularly quiet with the Eurex being shut. Whilst Gilts are seen down this morning following on from yesterday’s short-covering gains.

Market recap

• S&P 500 futures little changed at 1835.3
• Stoxx 600 up 0.2% to 327.8
• US 10Yr yield up 2bps to 2.99%
• German 10Yr yield little changed at 1.93%
• MSCI Asia Pacific up 0.1% to 141.3
• Gold spot up 0.5% to $1202/oz

EUROPE

• 18/19 sectors rise, led by real estate, travel & leisure
• Greek October Retail Sales Fall 1.9% y/y
• Gainers: CRH +1.9%, Taylor Wimpey +1.8%, Persimmon +1.8%,
• Berkeley Group +1.8%, Land Securities +1.6%, Endesa +1.7%, SBM Offshore +1.5%, Telenet Group +1.4%
• Decliners: Debenhams -10.1%, Banco Comercial Portugues -2.7%, International Personal Finance -2%, Essentra -1.9%, Petrofac -1.9%, Delta Lloyd -1.5%, Inchcape -1.5%, Lonmin -1.4%

ASIA

• Asian stocks rise, with Chinese shares leading gains. Australian shares underperform.
• MSCI Asia Pacific up 0.1% to 141.3
• Nikkei 225 up 0.7%, Hang Seng up 0.3%, Kospi up 0.5%,
• Shanghai Composite up 0.9%, ASX down 0.1%, Sensex up 0.1%
• All 10 sectors rise, led by energy, utilities
• Singapore Economy Grew 3.7% in 2013, Prime Minister Lee Says
• S. Korea’s Dec. Consumer Prices Rise 1.1% Y/y
• Gainers: BBMG Corp +6.6%, GOME Electrical Appliances +5.9%, Synnex Technology International +5.2%, China Gas Holdings +4.2%, Rural Electrification Corp +4.1%, Power Finance Corp +4.1%, Byd Co +4%, NWS Holdings +3.1%
• Decliners: Vangaurd International -3.9%, MMC Corp -3.4%, Parkson Holdings -2.8%, TSRC Corp -2.8%, Taiwan Mobile -2%, Newcrest Mining -1.9%, China Resources Cement -1.9%, Idea Cellular -1.9%

Overnight news bulletin from Bloomberg

• Treasuries decline in the last trade day of the year, 10Y yield holding near 3%, closed at 1.757% on Dec. 31, 2012.
• Treasuries delivered a total return of -2.3% this year, according to BofAML’s U.S. Treasury Index, the first yearly loss since 2009 as Fed scales back bond buys
• U.S. investment-grade corporates lost 1.3% this year while high yield bonds returned 6.8%, also according to BofAML indexes; the S&P 500 rallied 29%, while the DJIA is headed toward its biggest annual gain since 1996
• The yuan rose 2.9% this year, its fourth annual gain in Asia’s best performance for 2013; JPY has fallen 17.4% vs USD while EUR has gained 4.3%
• Gold is headed for the biggest slump in three decades and the first annual loss since 2000; silver is poised for the worst annual performance since 1981
• Latvia becomes the 18th member of the euro area tomorrow even as opponents of the currency switch outnumber proponents two-to-one as public expectations for accelerating inflation mount, opinion polls show
• Fourteen pot shops are scheduled to open in Denver tomorrow, just over a year after Colorado and Washington voters made their states the first to legalize recreational use; Colorado expects $67m in tax revenue
• Sovereign yields mostly higher. Nikkei closed for holiday; Japan reopens Jan. 6. Shanghai +0.9%. U.S. equity-index futures little changed. WTI crude declines, copper  little changed, gold rises

Asian Headlines

The PBoC said that China’s economy and consumer prices are basically stable and reiterated it is to pursue prudent monetary policy, according to a statement on the Q4 monetary policy committee meeting.

Nomura forecasts 2014 year-end Nikkei 225 average at 18000 and added that the Nikkei 225 could reach 25000 in 2018.

EU & UK Headlines

German Chancellor Merkel says that eliminating the budget deficit is a priority of her third four-year term. (Newswires)

Separately, the German finance minister has said Latvia’s joining of the Eurozone will structurally strengthen the monetary union.

Liquidity in the Eurozone area has risen from EUR 200bln to EUR 274.8bln following yesterday’s MRO and LTRO operations alongside the ECB’s failure to sterilise the aimed quantity in the SMP programme.

ESM has said that the Spain assistance program has expired with a successful exit.

Barclays pan-Euro agg month-end extensions: +0.03y

Barclays Sterling month-end extensions:+0.07y

US Headlines

Fed’s Fisher said his votes on the central bank’s policy panel in 2014 will reflect his concern that the Fed’s bond buying risks stoking inflation and exposing the institution politically.

Barclays US Tsys month-end extensions:+0.07y

Equities

The CAC and FTSE 100 are seen in the green albeit with thin volumes. In terms of stock specific news, BP have asked a federal appeals court to block economic loss payments in ITS USD 9.2bln settlement of the 2010 Gulf of Mexico oil spill unless they can be directly linked to the disaster. UK retailers are under pressure after Debenhams’ profit warning, with the likes of Sainsburys and Marks and Spencers consequently seeing some downside.

Elsewhere, pre-market it was reported for Sanofi that France may allow substitutes for Co.’s Doliprane, France’s most prescribed medicine which led to EUR 276mln of health-system reimbursements in 2012.

FX

In FX markets, EUR is seeing some downside amid signs liquidity in the Eurozone area rising from EUR 200bln to EUR 274.8bln following yesterday’s MRO and LTRO operations alongside the ECB’s failure to sterilise the aimed quantity in the SMP programme. GBP has managed to benefit from GBP/USD holding above the 1.6500 level. Overnight, JPY continued to strengthen which saw USD/JPY test the 105 handle to the downside. USD/JPY has steadily fallen since yesterday after failing to test 105.50 to the upside where there are large option barriers and a key Fibonacci level. However, there has been little in the way of movement for the pair in the European session.

Commodities

Production resumes at Libya’s 25,000 bpd Messla oil field, state-owned National Oil says on its website. China may buy more Iranian oil next year as a state trader is negotiating a new light crude contract that could raise imports from Tehran to levels not seen since tough Western sanctions were imposed in 2012.

Residents of a small town in North Dakota were urged to evacuate after a BNSF train carrying crude oil collided with another train on Monday, setting off a series of explosions and fires,
the latest in a string of incidents that have raised alarms over growing oil-by-rail traffic.

Berkshire Hathaway Inc. will swap about USD 1.4bln in shares of Phillips 66 for full ownership of the energy firm’s pipeline-services business, at billionaire Warren Buffett expands his bet on oil transportation.

SPDR Gold Trust said its holdings fell 0.37% to 798.22 tonnes on Monday from 801.22 tonnes on Friday.

via Zero Hedge http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/zerohedge/feed/~3/nLu3SZqeqCM/story01.htm Tyler Durden

Submitted by Mike Krieger of Liberty Blitzkrieg blog,

Over the weekend, Heather Linebaugh wrote a powerful Op-ed in The Guardian newspaper lamenting the lack of public understanding regarding the American drone program. Heather should know what she’s talking about, she served in the United Stated Air Force from 2009 until March 2012. She worked in intelligence as an imagery and geo-spatial analyst for the drone program during the occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan.

Here are some key excerpts from her article:

Whenever I read comments by politicians defending the Unmanned Aerial Vehicle Predator and Reaper program – aka drones – I wish I could ask them a few questions. I’d start with: “How many women and children have you seen incinerated by a Hellfire missile?” And: “How many men have you seen crawl across a field, trying to make it to the nearest compound for help while bleeding out from severed legs?” Or even more pointedly: “How many soldiers have you seen die on the side of a road in Afghanistan because our ever-so-accurate UAVs [unmanned aerial vehicles] were unable to detect an IED [improvised explosive device] that awaited their convoy?”

 

Few of these politicians who so brazenly proclaim the benefits of drones have a real clue of what actually goes on. I, on the other hand, have seen these awful sights first hand.

 

I knew the names of some of the young soldiers I saw bleed to death on the side of a road. I watched dozens of military-aged males die in Afghanistan, in empty fields, along riversides, and some right outside the compound where their family was waiting for them to return home from the mosque.

What the public needs to understand is that the video provided by a drone is not usually clear enough to detect someone carrying a weapon, even on a crystal-clear day with limited cloud and perfect light. This makes it incredibly difficult for the best analysts to identify if someone has weapons for sure. One example comes to mind: “The feed is so pixelated, what if it’s a shovel, and not a weapon?” I felt this confusion constantly, as did my fellow UAV analysts. We always wonder if we killed the right people, if we endangered the wrong people, if we destroyed an innocent civilian’s life all because of a bad image or angle.

Moreover, the many civilians being incinerated without a trial are not the only victims here. So are the actual drone operators themselves, many of whom end up committing suicide. Recall my article from December 2012: Meet Brandon Bryant: The Drone Operator Who Quit After Killing a Child. Of course, our so-called political “leaders” never get their hands dirty, other than to take a lobbyist bribe that is. Now more from Heather:

Recently, the Guardian ran a commentary by Britain’s secretary of state for defence, Philip Hammond. I wish I could talk to him about the two friends and colleagues I lost, within a year of leaving the military, to suicide. I am sure he has not been notified of that little bit of the secret UAV program, or he would surely take a closer look at the full scope of the program before defending it again.

Full article here.

via Zero Hedge http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/zerohedge/feed/~3/D7soUUcoNFM/story01.htm Tyler Durden

Submitted by Mike Krieger of Liberty Blitzkrieg blog,

Over the weekend, Heather Linebaugh wrote a powerful Op-ed in The Guardian newspaper lamenting the lack of public understanding regarding the American drone program. Heather should know what she’s talking about, she served in the United Stated Air Force from 2009 until March 2012. She worked in intelligence as an imagery and geo-spatial analyst for the drone program during the occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan.

Here are some key excerpts from her article:

Whenever I read comments by politicians defending the Unmanned Aerial Vehicle Predator and Reaper program – aka drones – I wish I could ask them a few questions. I’d start with: “How many women and children have you seen incinerated by a Hellfire missile?” And: “How many men have you seen crawl across a field, trying to make it to the nearest compound for help while bleeding out from severed legs?” Or even more pointedly: “How many soldiers have you seen die on the side of a road in Afghanistan because our ever-so-accurate UAVs [unmanned aerial vehicles] were unable to detect an IED [improvised explosive device] that awaited their convoy?”

 

Few of these politicians who so brazenly proclaim the benefits of drones have a real clue of what actually goes on. I, on the other hand, have seen these awful sights first hand.

 

I knew the names of some of the young soldiers I saw bleed to death on the side of a road. I watched dozens of military-aged males die in Afghanistan, in empty fields, along riversides, and some right outside the compound where their family was waiting for them to return home from the mosque.

What the public needs to understand is that the video provided by a drone is not usually clear enough to detect someone carrying a weapon, even on a crystal-clear day with limited cloud and perfect light. This makes it incredibly difficult for the best analysts to identify if someone has weapons for sure. One example comes to mind: “The feed is so pixelated, what if it’s a shovel, and not a weapon?” I felt this confusion constantly, as did my fellow UAV analysts. We always wonder if we killed the right people, if we endangered the wrong people, if we destroyed an innocent civilian’s life all because of a bad image or angle.

Moreover, the many civilians being incinerated without a trial are not the only victims here. So are the actual drone operators themselves, many of whom end up committing suicide. Recall my article from December 2012: Meet Brandon Bryant: The Drone Operator Who Quit After Killing a Child. Of course, our so-called political “leaders” never get their hands dirty, other than to take a lobbyist bribe that is. Now more from Heather:

Recently, the Guardian ran a commentary by Britain’s secretary of state for defence, Philip Hammond. I wish I could talk to him about the two friends and colleagues I lost, within a year of leaving the military, to suicide. I am sure he has not been notified of that little bit of the secret UAV program, or he would surely take a closer look at the full scope of the program before defending it again.

Full article here.

via Zero Hedge http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/zerohedge/feed/~3/D7soUUcoNFM/story01.htm Tyler Durden

One question that keeps popping up, and was addressed to some extent by NAB’s recent report, is whether all the elements of the current Bitcoin are necessary for a viable alternative currency.  And, as Citi’s Steve Englander asks (from a libertarian and pragmatic perspective), if they are not, or can be improved on, where does that leave Bitcoin’s first mover advantage?

 

Via Citi’s Steven Englander,

The libertarian streak in me likes the anonymity of Bitcoin transactions, but there  is a rational part of me that asks whether that aspect is essential if I am paying for a latte in Soho.  Similarly if the Bitcoin wallet can be made more secure by dropping  anonymity, how many transactors will give up transactional security for libertarian principle? Giving up anonymity may make Bitcoin transactions more secure, and I suspect almost all transactors will value security much more than anonymity.

Going further, Bitcoin’s decentralized nodes are not needed, if there was less concern about keeping Bitcoin outside the current payments/fiat currency system. The nodes allow transactions to be validated by the Bitcoin community, but you can have efficient transactions without the particular validation system used by Bitcoin.   The secure ledger of transactions can be centralized rather than decentralized. Bitcoin’s particular approach may be attractive for those who really want to operate outside the current financial system. There may be both legitimate and illegitimate reasons for this, but the vast majority of  transactions do not have this need. 

Going even further, if Bitcoin or an alternative currency embraced the financial regulatory system to make it more secure, how much payments efficiency is lost? You can still have secure, instantaneous transactions but inside the financial system there may be more security against fraud and more recourse if your Bitcoins are contained in your PC which gets hit by a meteor.

So there is this story about a special recipe for potato fritters (a very good recipe that I have tried). When a chef is handed the recipe, she decides to  ‘improve’ it by replacing each ingredient one-by-one with something more familiar. Having done so, she and her husband decide that the final result isn’t nearly as good as advertised and is pretty close to what they prepare all the time.  In eliminating anonymity, decentralization and non-regulation, much of the original intent of the Bitcoin developer(s) is being thwarted. The question is whether the core innovation of Bitcoin has been compromised or whether unneeded baggage is being  dropped.

For the record, mining Bitcoin is waste of resources from a social perspective. The amount of CPU and electricity needed to mine Bitcoin is high, and from a social viewpoint about as valuable as building defenses against attacks from Mars. What the mining  does is decide the allocation of the limited amount of Bitcoin produced each period and encourage the ledger to be kept. There is a  real social cost to the decentralization designed into Bitcoin.

If Bitcoin is a payments technology, much of what makes it efficient and attractive can be retained, while dropping some features that most users find unnecessary. Bitcoin may become less attractive to illicit users as a result, but that is a sacrifice many will be willing to make. Culturally, the developers of Bitcoin may find this evolution extremely unattractive, because the distrust of the financial system and of financial authorities was one of the motivations for its development. However attractive philosophically, many users will vote for pragmatism over principle and a Bitcoin clone that satisfied this pragmatic streak could be able to overcome the first mover advantage.

So far I have ignored Bitcoin as a store of value, but the proponents of Bitcoin as a store of value/speculation crucially need Bitcoin to be unique and have strong barriers to entry, despite the replicability of the technology. If it turns out that investors/miners will arbitrage between Bitcoin and other mined alternative currencies, the outcome will be that there are many perfect or near perfect substitutes for Bitcoin, and the effective supply will be much larger than would be suggested by the gradually increasing and ultimately capped supply of the original Bitcoin.  This will mean that valuations will be very fragile because in the long-term there will be no ability to limit the supply of Bitcoin lookalikes … unless some subset of Bitcoin-like currencies gain government/central bank endorsement which gives them an advantage over non-endorsed Bitcoin-like currencies.

Further, the Fed is now started on tapering and the BoE is talking about tightening, however slowly. Whatever sins major central banks commit, they are forgiven rapidly when they show any sign of moving back to orthodoxy,  provided they have not hugely compromised price stability, and sometimes even when they have. Improved confidence in some G4 fiat currencies is giving gold bad days, and the willingness to take the risk on alternative currencies may be inverse to how unrestrained major central banks are in their reserves creation.  Investors and central banks are looking for improved stores of value beyond fiat currencies, and Bitcoin possibly may be one of them. There are scenarios in which it could work as a store of value  but there are clearly many, many outcomes in which Bitcoin is one of a bunch of alternatives with a very indeterminate value.

Bottom line, there is the possibility that Bitcoin represents a big step forward in payments technology, but there are also seem to be straightforward ways to improve on its security, make it less attractive to criminals and more attractive to governments. It is far from guaranteed that that it will emerge as a stable store of value. Either function would be enhanced if it were within the financial system and embraced by the authorities, but it is unclear whether the Bitcoin philosophy will change fast enough or whether an alternative alternative will pip Bitcoin’s original first mover advantage.

via Zero Hedge http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/zerohedge/feed/~3/-jKzrGa7PR0/story01.htm Tyler Durden

For the first time in a week, the PBOC has decided not to intervene in the interbank liquidity market… the result so far… 7-day repo jumped 157bps to 6.5%… yep, clearly the "liquidity crisis" is behind us… as long as China does not "taper" on any given day by doing nothing instead of injecting liquidity.

 

 

via Zero Hedge http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/zerohedge/feed/~3/KE6NMwxNQzc/story01.htm Tyler Durden

Submitted by Harry Kazianis of The Diplomat,

Without question, 2013 was a jam-packed year for national security, defense and foreign policy watchers in the Asia-Pacific. What will 2014 bring? Look for next year’s major flashpoints to include mostly familiar themes from the last few years – and almost all include China, one way or another. Below are my top four flashpoints to watch out for in 2014, in ascending order.

4. North Korea Once Again Sparks Tensions: Next year offers countless possibilities for Pyongyang to raise tensions in Northeast Asia – and all are disturbing. From another nuclear or missile test, some sort of aggressive act that sparks a regional crisis (like another ROKS Cheonan incident, or worse) or just an outright collapse, North Korea always has the potential to plunge Northeast Asia and the wider region into a state of chaos. Last year, the actions of Kim Jung-un left me with many sleepless nights as editor of these pages. One can only hope in 2014 that Pyongyang will stick to filling the news cycle with trips by Dennis Rodman – but don’t count on it.

3. U.S.-China Tensions Continue to Grow: The rise of China is certainly a global story with worldwide ramifications. In 2014, look for China’s rise to take a new twist, sparking greater competitive tensions with the United States that are much more out in the open than in years past. From more incidents at sea like the near collision with the USS Cowpens, trade disputes and new trade blocs (perhaps the TTP?), allegations of more spying but from both sides (calling Edward Snowden?), there is no easier prediction to make than that 2014 will not be an easy one for U.S.-China ties.  While China talks of creating a new type of great power relations and seeking win-win ties and U.S. President Barack Obama is eager to foster a peaceful relationship, tensions seem to be too great to allow for wishful thinking.

My prediction for 2014 when it comes to Washington and Beijing: Look for the tone of this relationship to get much more competitive, tense, and filled with frank statements of intent from both sides, who will be less eager to please and more confrontational.

2. Drama in the South China Sea: It seems tensions here are never ending. Look for next year to continue a familiar pattern. Considering the number of claimants to the various islands, reefs, inlets and rocks along with the natural resources that are thought to lie beneath them, 2014 should provide plenty of stressful headlines. Look for Beijing to continue to press its claims through what fellow Diplomat author James Holmes calls “Small Stick Diplomacy,” but with a stick that might get a little bit bigger. With Beijing recently deploying its new, but non-functional, aircraft carrier to the region for maneuvers after declaring a new air defense identification zone (ADIZ) in the East China Sea, look for China to keep the pressure on in areas like Second Thomas Shoal.

1. Drama in the East China Sea: Forget Syria’s civil war, Iran’s nuclear program or America’s drawdown in Afghanistan – there is no more important international hotspot in the world today than in the East China Sea, where tensions between China and Japan over the Senkaku/Diaoyu islands are ongoing. Given that the world’s second and third largest economies are locked into a cycle of increasing tensions that could conceivably draw in the U.S., the stakes could not be any higher. With China continuing to probe the area with naval and air assets and declaring an ADIZ over the area, while Japan seeks to enhance its armed forces with a focus on defending this disputed area, a deadly witches brew seems to be taking shape. Could naval and air assets come close enough that an incident occurs? What happens then? In 2014, we might just find out.

via Zero Hedge http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/zerohedge/feed/~3/WVGXDnP60FI/story01.htm Tyler Durden

We’ve previous documented that seals, sea lions, polar bears, sea stars, turtles, sockeye salmon, herring, anchovies and sardines on the West Coast of North America are all suffering mysterious diseases … which are killing many.

We’ve asked whether this is related to massive releases of radiation from Fukushima. Update.

Sadly, we can now add other wildlife to the list.

EneNews reports:

Los Angeles Times, Dec. 29, 2013: Bald eagles are dying in Utah — 20 in the past few weeks alone — and nobody can figure out why. […] Many suffered from seizures, head tremors and paralysis […] Many of the eagles were brought to the mammoth Wildlife Rehabilitation Center of Northern Utah […] Within 48 hours, most were dead. […] State wildlife specialists are baffled. For weeks, officials have sent birds for necropsies […] At first, the agency’s disease scientists guessed the illness could be encephalitis, which is caused by the West Nile virus, but later ruled out that possibility. […] Officials suggest the die-off is possibly connected to the deaths of thousands of eared grebes that began in Utah in November. […] Officials still don’t know why the shore birds became sick. […] Officials at the Wildlife Rehabilitation Center have their own theories. Some point to radiation from Japan after the 2011 meltdown at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant. […] A call from Idaho shed new light: A wildlife official said bald eagles there were also getting sick, suggesting the birds were arriving in Utah already in bad health.

 

Buz Marthaler, Wildlife Rehabilitation Center of Northern Utah co-founder: “It’s just hard to have your national bird in your arms, going through seizures in a way it can’t control — when you can see it’s pain but don’t know what’s happening to it. As a human being, you just have problems with that. And when you lose one, it just grabs your heart. […] In an average year, we might get one or two, but we’ve received nine so far, and five of those have died. The other four are still in our care. […] We aren’t ruling out anything.”

 

***

 

Washington Post, Dec. 30, 2013: […] “This is really concerning to us,” says [Leslie McFarlane, the wildlife disease program coordinator for the state’s Division of Wildlife Resources]. She has been program coordinator for 10 years and describes the recent deaths as “very unusual.” […] The symptoms noted in the recent spate of deaths—and the broad geographical area in which they have cropped up—are what has officials concerned.

 

Listen to the public news service report here

In a second article, EneNews notes:

Juneau Empire, Dec. 29, 2013: […] the king [chinook] salmon — has fallen from its throne. […] Alaska has seen unprecedented declines in recent years […] scientists like Joe Orsi and Jim Murphy, both fisheries research biologists with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, are digging deeper into […] the cause of the startling downward trend. […] When asked about the potential impact Fukushima may be having on king salmon stocks in the Gulf of Alaska and elsewhere in the state, Orsi would not comment. “I’ve been told to refer you to the (Environmental Protection Agency),” he said, “Because I’m not an expert on the topic.” Calls and emails to the EPA were not returned in time and digging on the federal agency’s site revealed no current information on radiation from the Fukushima disaster. The last posted monitoring results occurred in June of 2011.

Unfortunately, the American and Japanese governments are doing everything they can to cover up the severity of the Fukushima disaster.  Indeed, anytime government or big corporations screw up, the government works to cover it up … instead of actually fixing the problem. And see this.

EneNews continues:

Bellingham Herald, Dec. 5, 2013: “[…] we see from test fisheries that the Chinook numbers returning to the Fraser River system were at a record low,” explained Ken Balcomb, executive director and principal investigator for The Center for Research and a science advisor to the whale watch association. […] [An] alarming decrease of an important identified food resource […]

 

Islander Sound, Dec. 25, 2013: [A] dismal return of Chinook salmon to the Fraser River.

 

Salmon Fishing in British Columbia, Canada: There are two major salmon runs of Chinook that are targeted by anglers; the Fraser river [and] Harrison River.

 

December 2013: Previously unpublished map from gov’t scientists shows Fukushima plume already at Alaska coast (PHOTO)

 

November 2013: CBC Headline: Radiation from Fukushima arrives on Alaska coast — University scientists concerned — “Is the food supply safe?… I don’t think anyone can really answer that”

 

September 2013: US Gov’t: Alaska island “appears to show impacts from Fukushima” — “Significant cesium isotope signature” detected — Scientists anticipate more marine life to be impacted as ocean plume arrives (VIDEO)

via Zero Hedge http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/zerohedge/feed/~3/uXE1kvBClHE/story01.htm George Washington