Indonesia, India named as biggest shark catchers

Google – AFP, 30 July 2013

Carcasses of finless sharks are being unloaded in Benoa, on Indonesian

resort island of Bali, on February 25, 2013 (AFP/File, Sonny Tumbelaka)

PARIS — Indonesia and India on Tuesday were named as the world's biggest catchers of sharks in an EU-backed probe into implementing a new pact to protect seven threatened species of sharks and rays.

Indonesia and India account for more than a fifth of global shark catches, according to the wildlife trade monitoring network TRAFFIC.

They head the list of 20 countries that together account for nearly 80 percent of total shark catch reported between 2002 and 2011.

The others, in descending order, are Spain, Taiwan, Argentina, Mexico, the United States, Malaysia, Pakistan, Brazil, Japan, France, New Zealand, Thailand, Portugal, Nigeria, Iran, Sri Lanka, South Korea and Yemen.

The report was requested by the EU's executive European Commission following the listing of seven species of sharks and rays by the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) in Bangkok last March.

Shark catchers (AFP Graphic)

The regulations will take effect in September 2014 to give countries time to determine what is a sustainable level of trade in these sharks and how their industries can adapt to it.

Shark numbers have been decimated by overfishing, caused in great part by a demand for shark fins in China.

The absence of this apex predator has a big knock-on effect on the main biodiversity chain. Some scientists believe that one of the consequences has been an explosion in jellyfish numbers.

TRAFFIC -- an alliance between green group WWF and the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) -- said it had identified other countries that were major hubs for the trade in shark meat or shark parts.

A truckload of sharks is seen in Calcutta,

India, on May 19, 2005 (AFP/File,

Deshakalyan Chowdury)

They include Bangladesh, Maldives, Oman, Singapore, Thailand and the United Arab Emirates as exporters of shark fins, and Namibia, South Africa, Panama and Uruguay as exporters of shark meat.

The report also gave a red-flag warning about the need to unravel a trade as complex as it is lucrative.

Some of the species are specifically targeted by fishing operations, but others end up as accidental, but valuable, catch when trawlers are looking for tuna.

"Key to implementing the CITES regulations will be the establishment of chain-of-custody measures, to facilitate enforcement and verification that harvest is legal," said Victoria Mundy-Taylor, who co-wrote the report.

The CITES controls will cover the ocean whitetip shark, porbeagle shark, three species of hammerhead shark and two species of manta rays, which are all classified as endangered on the IUCN's Red List.

These species are all slow-growing, late to mature and produce few young, which make them highly vulnerable to overfishing. The decision in Bangkok moved them to Appendix II of CITES, which covers species that are threatened by trade or may become so without strict controls.

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PTT oil spill reaches Thailand’s Khao Laem Ya park

Deutsche Welle, 29 July 2013

Oil from a pipeline leak has reached a national park in Thailand. Some visitors were cutting short their holidays on the island, which is a popular destination for weekend breaks for Bangkok residents.

Villagers, navy personnel and national park officials battled to clean up the oil, which reached the popular tourist island on Monday. The operator of the pipeline, part of the state-owned oil giant PTT Global Chemical, announced in a statement Sunday that it had dispatched 10 ships for the urgent cleanup. Authorities in the province have declared the surrounding area a disaster zone and pledged immediate assistance to affected residents.

"It covers about 300 meters (990 feet) of the beach," Khao Laem Ya National Park chief Soomet Saitong told the news agency AFP. "That's a lot."

According to PTT Global Chemical, about 50,000 liters (13,000 gallons) of crude oil gushed into the sea on Saturday. The pipeline sprung a leak about 20 kilometers (12 miles) off the coast of the eastern province of Rayong.

'Under threat'

A different PTT subsidiary had a hand in a huge oil spill off northwestern Australia in 2009, that country's largest offshore drilling accident.

Greenpeace has urged an end to oil drilling and exploration in the Gulf of Thailand in light of the current "massive leak." The environmental group announced that more than 200 oil spills have occurred in Thai waters during the past three decades.

"The Gulf of Thailand, the nation's food basket, has long been under threat from oil spills along oil transport routes, at points of discharge and loading of oil carriers or from the several hundred oil drilling operations across the Gulf," Greenpeace activist Ply Pirom said.

The spill threatens the ecosystem not just by the pure volume of oil released into the ocean and onto the beaches, but also because of the harsh chemicals used in cleanup efforts.

"The main damage will be to corals and the fish food chain," said Srisuwan Janya, president of Thai environmental group The Stop Global Warming Association.

mkg/rg (Reuters, AFP, dpa, AP)

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Koh Samet island (EPA)

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Fujian marine industry receives boost via mobile banking

Want China Times, Staff Reporter 2013-07-28

Fishing boats in Qingdao in eastern China's Shandong province.
(Photo/Xinhua)

The scope of mobile banking has now grown to cover China's marine sector, extending integrated banking service to marine fisheries and traders in southern China's Fujian province, reports the Shanghai-based First Financial Daily.

"In the past when we conducted trade we were at sea in fishing boats, taking huge sums of money with us and sometimes having to hire bodyguards," said Chen Yantong, chairman of Haifa Fishery based in Fujian. "Now I use mobile banking, its fast and convenient and I only have to take my smartphone with me," Chen said.

Fishermen like Chen used to conduct trade in cash at sea meaning that their transaction would be affected by adverse weather or typhoons, the paper said. Following the technological breakthrough in mobile communication and the popularity of smartphones, China's major banks have expanded their customer base and developed to provide innovative services to the marine industry.

As of the end of May, the Ningde branch of China Construction Bank in Fujian had more than 320,000 mobile banking clients, with total transactions reaching 18 billion yuan (US$2.9 billion). Since 2008 when it began to offer online banking, its mobile banking revenues have grown by 72% year on year.

The convenience of the service has directly upgraded the production efficiency in the whole upstream to downstream industry, with the total production of Ningde's mariculture industry rising 30% since it applied the marine banking service. The delivery period of traded seafood has also shortened to one week, down from the previous 15 days.

The China Construction Bank branch has over 11 million mobile banking customers, or one out of three residents using the mobile banking services, according to vice president of the branch Zheng Yuanping. The Ningde branch ranked No. 1 among all banks in Fujian, in terms of trading value, total client numbers and the number of newly increased clients in the mobile banking service.

As of the end of June, China Construction Bank's clients in the mobile banking service exceeded 100 million, ranking top among all Chinese banks, the bank said.

Halliburton to plead guilty to destroying Gulf evidence

BBC News, 26 July 2013

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US company Halliburton will plead guilty to destroying evidence relating to the 2010 Gulf Of Mexico oil spill.

The plea agreement, which is subject to court approval, means Halliburton will have to pay the maximum possible fine.

The spill occurred at BP's Macondo well in the Gulf of Mexico and was the worst in US history.

BP had accused Houston-based Halliburton, its contractor, of destroying evidence and asked it to pay for all damages.

The major oil spill three years ago followed a blast at the Deepwater Horizon oil rig that killed 11 workers.

"A Halliburton subsidiary has agreed to plead guilty to one misdemeanour violation associated with the deletion of records created after the Macondo well incident, to pay the statutory maximum fine of $200,000 and to accept a term of three years probation," the company said in a statement.

Halliburton is the third of three major companies at the heart of the oil spill to admit criminal wrongdoing. Oil giant BP and rig operator Transocean have already pleaded guilty to charges related to the disaster.

'Destroy these results'

The US Department of Justice said that prior to the blowout at the rig, Halliburton had recommended to BP that the Macondo well contain 21 centralisers - metal collars that can improve cementing.

The justice department said that Halliburton had run two computer simulations of the Macondo well's final cementing job to compare the impact of using six versus 21 centralisers.

It said the results of these simulations indicated that there was little difference.

The department said that Halliburton's programme manager "was directed to, and did, destroy these results".

"Efforts to forensically recover the original destroyed Displace 3D computer simulations during ensuing civil litigation and federal criminal investigation by the Deepwater Horizon Task Force were unsuccessful," it added.

"In agreeing to plead guilty, Halliburton has accepted criminal responsibility for destroying the aforementioned evidence."

Softening position?

Halliburton, along with other firms, is also facing a civil trial over the oil spill.

It is expected to be one of the biggest and costliest trials in decades and will determine the causes of the spill, and assign responsibility to the parties involved, including Halliburton, BP, Transocean, and Cameron, which manufactured the blowout preventer meant to stop oil leaks.

In April, Halliburton said that it was in talks to settle claims in the trial.

However, some observers said the guilty plea by Halliburton may indicate a weakness in its position in negotiating a settlement.

"Their willingness to plead to this may also indicate that they'd like to settle up with the federal government on the civil penalties," said Edward Sherman, a law professor at Tulane University.

"It may indicate a softening of their position."

Halliburton has already made a voluntary contribution of $55m (£36m) to the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation.

For its part, BP put aside $7.8bn when it agreed last year to pay compensation for the oil spill.

US says bombs dropped on Australia reef to avoid boats

Google – AFP, 22 July 2013

A coral reef on in Australia's Great Barrier Reef, October 2, 2012 (AIMS/

AFP/File, Ray Berkelmans)

SYDNEY — The United States military said Monday it had jettisoned four unarmed bombs on Australia's Great Barrier Reef during a training exercise only because civilian boats had strayed into the drop zone.

The US 7th Fleet had earlier said only that the planned target range was "not clear of hazards" at the time, forcing the two Harrier jets to dump their ordnance within the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park off Queensland state.

But Commander William Marks revealed Monday that the crews had made the decision, which has been criticised by environmentalists, because civilian vessels were detected inside the drop range.

"The approved area where they could do some of this live training with these 500-pound bombs, it was not safe to drop the bombs," he told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation.

"There were civilian boats right below them."

The joint Australia-US training which began on July 15 involves 28,000 troops and Marks was unable to say how civilian vessels had strayed into the Shoalwater Bay military training area.

"I don't have any more information about what they were doing and why they were there," Marks said.

"But it's part of our procedures just to do that safety check and if we do see that, then for safety reasons we do not drop any ordnance."

Officials on Sunday said the fighter jets had conducted an "emergency jettison" of two BDU 45s, which are inert ordnance, and two GBU 12s, which were dropped in an unarmed state on the iconic reef's marine park on July 16.

The two AV-8B Harrier planes had intended to drop the bombs on a range on a nearby island but were unsuccessful despite several attempts. Running low on fuel, and unable to land carrying such a large load, they decided to jettison the bombs.

"Their priority was to get to a place which would create the least impact, which we believe we did -- dropping them in between 50 and 60 metres of water in a place where it is not a hazard to shipping and not a hazard to navigation," Marks said.

The drop was coordinated with Australian authorities, he said, adding that the environment was a priority for the US military.

The Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority, which will work with the defence department to recover the bombs, said they were considered low risk and about 30 kilometres from the nearest reef.

But the Queensland Greens Sunday described the incident as outrageous.

"Is this how we look after our World Heritage area now? Letting a foreign power drop bombs on it?" asked Senator Larissa Waters.

The Great Barrier Reef (AFP Graphic)

Beijing beckons giant rubber duck north for the winter

Want China Times, Xinhua 20 July 2013

More than 30 yellow duck toys bedeck the wharves and pleasure boats
in Shichahai park. (Photo/XInhua)

A huge rubber duck has ignited a yellow frenzy in Beijing even before its arrival, with dozens of its feathered brethren appearing in a lake that aspires to be its swimming pool.

More than 30 yellow duck dolls have bedecked the wharves and pleasure boats in Shichahai park since Tuesday, as the park vied with other Beijing waters for hosting the oversized bath toy.

"We hope the presence of the 'small yellow ducks' will attract the 'big yellow duck' to swim here," a boat ticket seller in the park told Xinhua.

Created by Dutch artist Florentijn Hofman, the giant rubber duck is expected to visit Beijing in September after making a splash in Hong Kong. During its one-month visit in Victoria Harbour, it attracted 8 million tourists and even triggered widespread whining after it was temporarily deflated for maintenance on May 14.

News of its arrival has elated Beijingers, who jokingly said online that they would welcome the giant fowl with sweet bean sauce and onions, seasonings that go with the famous Peking duck.

On Friday, tourists in the park were seen hugging the smaller duck dolls as they took boat trips around the lake, which boasts a large expanse of lotus and many waterfront pubs.

A mother surnamed Yan was seen negotiating with the park staff whether the ducks could be sold at a price, as her 5-year-old son could not be separated from the stuffed toy lying on a lakeside bench. "We wish so eagerly for the genuine duck to come. I'm sure it will bring a lot of happiness to the city," Yan said.

Ling Min, a spokeswoman with the park's administration, said they hope the small ducks will spread joy and positive energy "just like the big one has done."

"Living in Beijing is very stressful, so we hope the ducklings will remind people of their childhood and help them relax," Ling said.

To shun accusations of the park making a profit using cheap knock-offs, Ling said they had explained to boaters about the distinction between the smaller ducks and the original design of the giant rubber one.

The inflatable duck has triggered discussions on copycatting after several Chinese cities had reportedly installed copies of the ducky leviathan in often clumsy attempts to mimic the real spectacle.

An American tourist who gave his first name as Kevin said there are differences between intentional duplication and using knock-offs in a celebration to welcome the real thing.

"If I had made the yellow duck and saw people here liked it and did something to prepare before its arrival, I think I would be very happy to come," Kevin said.

Thousands of people crowd the waterfront on the last day to see a

giant duck in Hong Kong on June 9, 2013 (AFP, Richard A. Brooks)

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Jail terms for Concordia disaster in plea deals

Deutsche Welle, 20 July 2013

The first legal punishments for last year's Costa Concordia shipwreck disaster have been imposed. An Italian court has accepted plea bargain agreements for four crew members and a manager of the ship's operating company.

An Italian judge imposed jail sentences under plea bargains against five shipping company employees on Saturday for the Costa Concordia disaster in early 2012 that claimed 32 lives. They had been indicted for manslaughter and causing serious injury.

The longest sentence of 34 months was imposed on Roberto Ferrarini, the crisis coordinator of the Costa Crociere cruise company. He was accused of delaying rescue operations in a bid to minimize reputational damage for the firm.

The plea bargains accepted by the court in the Italian town of Grosseto allowed defendants to admit guilt in return for lower punishments, thereby avoiding public trial.

Cabin service manager Manrico Giampiedroni was given a 30-month term.

Three others - the ship's deputy commander Ciro Ambrosio, third officer Silvia Coronica, Indonesian helmsman Jacob Rusli Bin - were handed jail terms of 23, 18 and 20 months respectively.

Judicial sources quoted by Reuters said none are likely to go to jail as the sentences under two years would be suspended, and the longer sentences could be subject to appeal or replaced with community service.

Schettino alone facing trial

Saturday's decision leaves the ship's captain Francesco Schettino as the sole defendant in court proceedings that started earlier this week in Grosseto. He is accused of multiple manslaughter and abandoning ship. Schettino has denied the charges. If found guilty, he could face up to 20 years in prison.

The Grosseto court has set the next hearings in Schettino's trial for September 23 to 27. His lawyers have called 100 witnesses and plan to probe management practices at ship owner Costa Crociere as part of his complaint that he should not be standing trial alone.

The Concordia hit a reef off Italy's western Tuscany coast on January 13, 2012, and ran aground off the island of Giglio, after steering dangerously close to the coastline. On board had been 4,229 passengers from 70 countries.

It keeled sideways, sparking a panicked and delayed evacuation which saw some people forced to throw themselves into the freezing cold waters during what was wintertime in the Mediterannean region.

Audio from the ship's black box later revealed command chaos on the bridge on the night of the shipwreck. The bodies of two victims were never found.

ipj/rc (AP, dpa, AFP, Reuters)

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Australia announces Papua New Guinea asylum deal

BBC News, 19 July 2013

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People arriving by boat to seek asylum will no longer be resettled in Australia but will go to Papua New Guinea, Prime Minister Kevin Rudd has announced.

The news came as Mr Rudd set out an overhaul of asylum policy ahead of a general election expected shortly.

Australia has seen a sharp rise in the number of asylum-seekers arriving by boat in recent months.

Mr Rudd said the "hard-line decision" was taken to ensure border security.

The prime minister, who ousted Julia Gillard as Labor Party leader amid dismal polling figures last month, made the announcement in Brisbane flanked by the PNG Prime Minister Peter O'Neill.

"From now on, any asylum-seeker who arrives in Australia by boat will have no chance of being settled in Australia as a refugee," Mr Rudd said.

Under the agreement, new arrivals will be sent to PNG for assessment and settled there if found to be a refugee.

To accommodate the new arrivals, an offshore processing centre in PNG's Manus island will be significantly expanded.

No cap has been placed on the number of people Australia can send to PNG, Mr Rudd said.

The prime minister said the move was aimed at dissuading people from making the dangerous journey to Australia by boat.

"Our country has had enough of people-smugglers exploiting asylum-seekers and seeing them drown on the high seas," he said.

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Europe fish stocks 'heading for recovery', study claims

BBC News, Paul Rincon, Science editor, 18 July 2013

Cod remains vulnerable, but the authors say other stocks show signs
of bouncing back

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Many European fish stocks are on the road to recovery from overfishing, according to a major new study.

Findings from an international effort to assess the status of dozens of fish stocks are published in the journal Current Biology.

The research found that many stocks in the northeast Atlantic were being fished sustainably and, given time, should recover.

But one researcher said that any talk of a recovery would be "premature".

Paul Fernandes and Robin Cook examined the status of 57 stocks monitored over 60 years in the northeast Atlantic.

They used data collected largely by government research institutes, including large programs at hundreds of fish markets and at sea on hundreds of fishing and research vessels operating every day of the year.

They found that over the last decade there had been substantial reductions in the exploitation of these populations, and this coincided with improvements in their status.

The European Union's Common Fisheries Policy (CFP) has come in for sustained criticism for failing to protect fish stocks. The authors, though, say their results provide no support for a view that the CFP has failed.

They were surprised by the number of stocks that have improved since fishing pressure was reduced at the turn of the century. In 2011, for the first time, they say, the majority of fish stocks were being fished sustainably - the result of reforms put in place in 2002.

"Contrary to common perception, the status of our fish stocks is improving," said co-author Dr Paul Fernandes from the University of Aberdeen, UK.

"Many of our stocks are not overfished; nature now needs to take its course for these fish to rebuild their populations."

However, the status of some stocks - particularly cod - remains precarious.

Timescale required

Dr Callum Roberts, a fisheries expert who was not involved with the study, told BBC News: "Reports of recovery are premature."

Dr Roberts, from the University of York, UK, added: "There is an improvement in some of the indicators, and that is good news. But what is monitored is only a small fraction of what is exploited - albeit it is among the more commercially [relevant] species that are being monitored."

At the 2002 World Summit on Sustainable Development, politicians committed to re-build fish stocks to maximum sustainable yield (MSY) levels by 2015. The MSY describes the largest catch that can be taken from a fish stock over an indefinite period without harming it.

"As time went on, it became more and more apparent that there was no way they could re-build stocks to those levels by that target year," said Dr Roberts, "So a less ambitious target was adopted, which is that fishing mortality rates need to be brought down by 2015 to a point where fish stocks can be re-built to MSY levels by some future date.

"That is the main essence of this paper - for a lot of stocks we have reduced fishing mortality rates to a level that will deliver MSY levels eventually. But there's no set timescale over which you have to do it... Some of the fishing mortality rates are not going to deliver recovery of the fish stocks any time soon."

Co-author Dr Robin Cook told BBC News: "Many of the stocks are above what is regarded as the minimum safe level of biomass.

"There are some stocks where you would have some concerns. Some of the cod stocks have not recovered particularly strongly.

"In the last few decades there has been some success at reducing fleet size and the number of days that vessels fish for. But that has to stay that way - if you don't do that things will just deteriorate to where they were in the past.

"Having got to where we are, we don't want to just take the brakes off and expand again."

This year has seen marathon negotiations to reform the Common Fisheries Policy, including an agreement to phase out "discards" - the controversial practice of dumping unwanted fish.

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“2011 and Beyond” - What you are seeing, and why - Jan 16, 2010 (Kryon channeled by Lee Carroll) (Text version)

"....Let us just talk about the ocean for a moment. We won't even get to what's happening in the air and what mammals might experience. Let's just speak of the ocean. Have you heard about the salmon? What has your science warned you against? You're overfishing! The sea is dying. The coral is dying. The reefs are going away. You're not seeing the food chain that used to be there. You've overfished everything. Fishing quotas have been set up to help this. Oh, all those little people in the red room - they don't know about the purple. Red people only know about the red paradigm.

Did you hear about the salmon recently? There's too many of them! In the very place where quotas are in place so you won't overfish, they're jumping in the boats! Against all odds and any projections from environmentalists or biologists, they're overrunning the oceans in Alaska - way too many fish.

What does that tell you? Is it possible that Gaia takes care of itself? That's what it tells you! Perhaps this alignment is going to keep humanity fed. Did anybody think of this? What if Gaia is in alliance with you? What if the increase in consciousness that raised your DNA vibration has alerted Gaia to change the weather cycle and get ready to feed humanity? Are you looking at the ocean where the oil spill occurred? It's recovering in a way that was not predicted. What's happening?

The life cycle itself is being altered by the temperature change of the ocean and much of what you have believed is the paradigm of life in the sea is slowly changing. A new system of life is appearing, as it has before, and is upon you in your lifetime. It will compliment what you know and expose you to a new concept: Gaia regularly refreshes the life cycle on Earth. ...."

Hundreds of dead stingrays found on Mexico beach

BBC News, 17 July 2013

Dead stingrays on a beach  near the Mexican town of Ursulo Galvan
on 16 July 2013

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Hundreds of dead stingrays have been found on a beach in the eastern Mexican state of Veracruz.

The stingrays - more than 250 in total - were spotted on Chachalacas beach near the town of Ursulo Galvan on Tuesday.

Some locals reported seeing fishermen dumping the rays on the beach.

Veracruz's Environment Minister Victor Alvarado Martinez has asked federal authorities for help investigating the incident.

Local mayor Jose Martin Verdero said it was "possible that the rays had got caught in nets" used by Chachalacas fishermen trying to catch other fish.

But residents said they had been dumped after the fishermen did not get the price they wanted for them.

Chachalacas fisherman Jaime Vazquez said that in his more than three decades in the job he had ever seen any of his colleagues dump dead fish on the beach.

He told local media that any unwanted fish would have been returned to the sea while still alive.

Accounting Scandal Hooks Spanish Frozen Fish Giant

Jakarta Globe – AFP, Katell Abiven, July 14, 2013

A Pescanova’s store is pictured in Vigo, northwestern Spain, on June 26, 2013.
(AFP Photo/Miguel Riopa)

Madrid. It boasts a fleet of 100 ships and 10,000 employees worldwide but suspected fraud at frozen seafood giant Pescanova is causing an embarrassing stink in export-hungry Spain.

After years of posting growing sales, amounting to 1.7 billion euros ($2.2 billion) in 2011, the group that was among the world industry’s leaders and the pride of the northern region of Galicia has plunged into scandal.

One evening in February, Pescanova was forced to reveal that it could not publish its 2012 accounts.

Two months later, on April 25, it filed for bankruptcy.

“That was a surprise,” said Francisco Vilar, regional secretary of the food-processing federation of the main union at Pescanova, the Workers’ Commissions (CCOO).

“People who work here have been here for 30, 40 years, with good management. So it was an enormous surprise.”

Pescanova is accused of false billing, hiding a debt of 3.3 billion euros that was more than double the declared figure, and its top managers of selling shares just before the scandal broke.

“It’s Enron, Spanish style,” said one banking source, referring to the giant US energy group that collapsed in the 2000s in one of the biggest financial scandals in US corporate history.

“There was a tangle of subsidiaries set up solely and uniquely to hide the debt,” the source said.

The group had more than 100 offshoots, in many of which the group held less than 50 percent of the equity to as to avoid including their debts in its accounts.

To pay for an all-out investment program, from salmon farms in Chile to prawn preparation centres in Ecuador, the group “would go to different banks in the world to ask for credit, using the image and reputation of Pescanova, and everyone gave it to them, which was logical because they were industry leaders,” said one source close to the company.

Banco Sabadell, Banco Popular, Deutsche Bank, Commerzbank, but also banks in Namibia, Bolivia, or the island of Mauritius: more than 100 banks loaned money to the frozen fish giant, which boasts of inventing refrigerated shipping in the 1960s.

Now the Pescanova president, Manuel Fernandez de Sousa, is being investigated for suspected false accounting and insider trading. Auditors Deloitte and KPMG have been tasked to look into its accounts.

‘We should have suspected something’

A KPMG report made public Wednesday was damning.

“In the last financial periods, practices were designed and set up whose object was to present a group financial debt smaller than the reality and, as a consequence, results that were larger than those actually generated,” KPMG said according to a statement to the stock market regulator.

“It is a tough lesson, we should have suspected something,” said the banking source, adding that it was difficult to see the problems in a company whose results are audited annually.

“We are speaking about a listed company, not a family business that has fewer legal obligations!” the source added.

Manuel Fernandez de Sousa, who denies any embezzlement and admits only to making mistakes, admitted in a statement that Pescanova “was created and expanded almost without capital thanks to banking credits, like the great majority of Spanish companies”.

“That has always been our weak point and it still is.”

At the end of June, the group secured an emergency loan of 56 million euros. No foreign bank wanted to take part.

“That’s not a good sign,” worried the banking source, while Spain, whose banks are being recapitalised with European financing, is struggling to regain market confidence.

The scandal “does great damage to a country’s credibility,” said Joaquin Yvancos, lawyer for more than 100 small shareholders suing the management including a US fund and investors from Costa Rica.

“We are not talking just about Pescanova but the Spain brand,” he said, adding that it came at the “worst time” when the country was trying to persuade investors to return.

“Pescanova is a multinational with a well-known brand and when this kind of thing happens it is never good,” the Spanish stock market regulator’s president Elvira Rodriguez said recently.

“It is one of the world’s main fishing groups,” said Alberto Roldan, analyst at Lloyds Bank.

“This very unfortunate affair tarnishes businesses’ efforts to be more international,” he added. “It is hard to properly measure the enormous damage caused by Pescanova to Spanish industry.”

Agence France-Presse