Navy Disses CNN Report on Airliner Search

The US Navy dismissed a CNN report Thursday that the Navy had concluded the pings detected in the Indian Ocean were not from the black box recorders of missing flight MH-370.A Navy spokesman said that comments the Navy's civilian deputy director of ocean engineering,Michael Dean,made to CNN,to the effect that authorities now almost universally believe the pings did not come from the flight's black boxes,but possibly from the ship or within the electronics of the Bluefin-21 submersible,were speculative and premature.
We continue to work with our partners to more thoroughly understand the data acquired by the Towed Pinger Locator.As such,we would defer to the Australians,as the lead in the search effort,to make additional information known at the appropriate time,the spokesman said in an emailed statement.
It wasn't clear whom Mr.Dean was speaking for,but CNN proceeded to hold a discussion on the remarks with its panel of experts.
The Australian Transport Safety Bureau,the agency in charge of the search,had said in a statement earlier Thursday that the search in the vicinity of the acoustic detections thought to be pings from the plane's black boxes can now be considered complete,and in its professional judgement,the area can now be discounted.*
It is common for searches to reach dead ends such as the failure of Bluefin-21 to locate the plane's black boxes in the area the pings were heard in,then pick up again with a new strategy.The next chapter of this long search will be hiring a contractor to continue the Indian Ocean hunt for the missing airliner in a few months' time.

Blackstone's Deals;GeoResonance Claim Checked

The absolute levels of securities are on the higher side,said Stephen Schwarzman,CEO of The Blackstone Group,but there are deals to be had and we are quite active.We never buy anything unless we can improve them significantly.There are more than two trillion dollars in cash available,so you're gonna see deals.*
Long term,China's a really interesting place.I'm not in the non-believer school.Per capita income is very low there.Their middle class has grown immensely,but it's not as big as it needs to be.You have to transition from an export economy to a consumption economy.*
We've been very active buying both companies and real estate.Overall,this has been a very active time for us.We've bought and sold a lot of companies as well.Our companies are outperforming the S&P in a pretty significant way,Mr.Schwarzman observed.*
US pending home sales were up 3.4% in March.It's a good solid gain,a beat,but we need to see it continue throughout the Spring,said CNBC real estate correspondent Diana Olick.*
Bangladesh is sending two navy frigates to check out a claim by Australian firm GeoResonance that it may have found the wreckage from lost flight MH-370 in the Bay of Bengal.The Australian search committee has dismissed the claim because it doesn't fit with the satellite data provided by British firm Inmarsat,nor the pings detected by a search vessel in the southern Indian Ocean.
GeoResonance says its technology was created to search for nuclear,biological and chemical weapons under the ocean or in bunkers underground.They claim it is reliable and has successfully located submersed structures,ships,munitions and aircraft.In some instances,objects that were buried under layers of silt could not be identified by other means.The technology records electromagnetic fields by airborne multispectral imaging,but GeoResonance will not divulge exactly how the proprietary method works.
About 190 kilometers/118 miles off the coast of Bangladesh,they found traces of aluminium,titanium,copper and other trace elements that hadn't been there before the airliner disappeared on 8 March.These elements are suggestive of a commercial airliner such as MH-370,a Boeing 777.The company is not declaring this finding is MH-370;however,it should be investigated,their press release stated.*
The Blackstone Group LP(BX)

Ukraine Unrest;MH-370 Search;The Masters

Pro-Russian demonstrators have 48 hours to reach a negotiated settlement and vacate two government buildings they seized in Eastern Ukraine,or be forcefully removed,the Ukrainian government says.Unrest has erupted in the eastern cities of Luhansk,Donetsk and Kharkiv,which are near the border with Russia.Secretary of State John Kerry says it is being instigated by paid Russian agents.*
At the same time,the NATO alliance commander,US Air Force General Philip Breedlove,has been tasked with developing new options for reinforcing the alliance's military presence in the region and reporting back to Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel.NATO is gravely concerned about the persistence of some 40,000 Russian troops along the Russian border with Ukraine,which Russia insists are only on military exercises.*
Fourteen planes and thirteen ships are out searching for the lost flight MH-370 today,Thursday.The search area has been whittled down to a site smaller than the state of West Virginia.The plane's wreckage is believed to be deeper under the ocean than the Titanic.The searchers will not deploy the Blue Fin autonomous underwater vehicle with its sonar as long as there is a prospect of hearing more pings from the aircraft's black boxes,in order to further reduce the search area for the slow-moving AUV.*
It's very difficult to reach the top,but it is also difficult to stay there.
-Arnold Palmer,Hall of Fame golfer
An international field of the world's best golfers will hit the tough course at Augusta National in Georgia today for the opening round of The Masters tournament,one of the world's most prestigious and traditional sporting events.Adam Scott of Australia is the defending champion.World Number One golfer Tiger Woods is sidelined by a back injury.*

Monday Newsline:Asian Shares Lower;Indian Election;MH-370 Progress

Asian markets were mostly lower Monday on the disappointing US jobs report Friday,which fell short of analysts' growth projections.The Nikkei cratered 1.69%,while the HSI fell 0.74 and the ASX slipped 0.17.US stock futures were also lower.The Shanghai Composite defied the trend,rising 0.74%.
Wheat prices are up on widespread dryness in breadbasket areas from Ukraine to the United States.*
The world's largest democracy has begun its elections today as India goes to the polls.The nationalist BJP party is the frontrunner over the incumbent Congress Party.The BJP is led by Narendra Modi,Chief Minister of Gujarat state.Some label him as a fascist guilty of human rights violations,and he was denied entry to the US in 2005.He is popular in corporate circles as Gujarat state has done well.*
The search for flight MH-370 entered a new,more promising phase Monday as searchers zeroed in on the Australian Defence Ministry vessel Ocean Shield's detection of two extended audio events near the bottom of the Indian Ocean.The great depth of the pinging episodes consistent with the plane's flight recorders,one of which lasted for two hours twenty minutes and the other for thirteen minutes at some 4500 meters/2.8 miles,suggest why this search has been the most challenging in aviation history.
The pings were picked up by the US Navy's pinger locator device that the Ocean Shield was towing at depth over the new area off Western Australia's northern coast.The searchers need a third pinging event so they can triangulate the location and send the Blue Fin 21 submersible down to take still photos of the possible wreckage.It's a process that could require days to complete,retired Air Chief Marshall Angus Houston,the search coordinator,told reporters in a Perth press conference.He said we are very close to where we need to be.Clearly this is a most promising lead.In the search so far,it is probably the best information that we have had.*
In sport,Australian golfer Matt Jones won the Shell Houston Open,securing a place for himself in The Masters tournament this weekend in Augusta,Georgia.It was Jones' first PGA victory.American Matt Kuchar came in second,and Sergio Garcia of Spain took third.
Meanwhile,American Lexi Thommpson made the traditional leap into Poppy's Pond at Mission Hills Golf Club in Rancho Mirage,California as the winner of the Kraft Nabisco Open,the year's first major on the LPGA circuit.It was the fourth LPGA win for Thompson,19,who is known for her long drives.

Voices and Visions:MH-370 and the International Community

We've explored less than 5% of our oceans-less than 1% of the bottoms,said explorer Fabien Cousteau,the grandson of Jacques Cousteau.It could take years to find the airliner.We just don't have the technology.The reality is,there's just so much down there that we don't understand,Mr.Cousteau observed.*
It's a very difficult search-the most difficult in human history,said Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott in Perth Wednesday.We in Australia are throwing everything we have at it.We owe it to the families,to our good friends the Malaysians,to the troubled citizens of the wider world.I say to the families:be patient.
We cannot be certain of ultimate success,but we can be certain that we will spare no effort.It is an extraordinary international effort that has taken place here.This is an antidote to pessimism.This is one time when we are all working together,Mr.Abbott pointed out.*
A new refined area of search has given us new hope,added Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak.Australia has proven an invaluable friend.The disappearance of MH-370 has tested our collective resolve.I can promise the families that we will not give up,Mr.Razat said during his visit to the search operations centre in Perth.*
At this point,many safety officials are looking at this and they're bewildered;they don't know what to do,because we don't know what happened,said journalist Andy Pasztor of The Wall Street Journal.The investigation is fragmented,without direction.The two strands of this investigation were never properly merged.The wrong search area was due to bad coordination.
You really get a sense that from the very beginning there have been tremendous problems in coordination.The Malaysians just haven't been able to get appropriate oversight and coordination.In the future,experts say,it will be a much more coordinated and international probe from the very beginning,Mr.Pasztor noted.

Obama in Europe;HMAS Success

Russia stands alone,President Barack Obama said in Brussels on Wednesday.It was alone in the UN.If anyone in Russia thought they could drive a wedge between the EU and the United States,they were mistaken.Russia's actions aren't just about one country;they're about the kind of world we want.
We have gone through some very rocky waters;through these difficult times,we've been able to strengthen the relationship.On the sanctions,so far what we've seen is excellent coordination between the United States and Europe.What we're now doing is coordinating deeper sanctions should Russia move further into Ukraine.We're taking the impact of sanctions on Europe into account.Giving Europe more gas is not gonna happen overnight.Our energy ministers are committed to doing that.That is their assignment coming out of the G7 meeting.
Our publics have legitimate questions about the trade deals.Because of the trade relationship,we've created millions of jobs on both sides,and growth and prosperity have flourished.Its important to us as leaders to see that others beside the elite few benefit from trade deals,and I think we can shape them in such a way to ensure that.*
Captain Allison Norris of the Royal Australian Navy said HMAS Success was prepared to pick up debris from the Indian Ocean,should it prove to be from the lost flight MH-370.Radar would not be able to detect objects that close to the ship,so lookouts with binoculars and night vision devices are being posted.It's very cold-we rotate the lookouts every hour.Any debris we find would have to be returned to shore,the captain noted.*
Australia is in charge of the search operation,giving assignments to the mutinational units.The search was called off again Thursday on account of bad weather.Six military and five civilian aircraft were scheduled to search,along with Australian and Chinese ships.