Ottawa

The growing trade feud between the US and Canada escalated overnight when Ottawa announced it was scrapping a plan to buy 18 F-18 Boeing Super Hornet fighter jets amid a deepening dispute with the U.S. aerospace company, Reuters reported. In a snub to the US, Canada's Liberal government will instead announce that intends to acquire a used fleet of older Australia F-18 jets, the same kind of plane Canada currently operates.

The last time there was a widespread physical gold counterfeiting scare was in the summer of 2012 when as we reported the discovery of a single 10 oz Tungsten-filled gold bar in Manhattan's jewelry district led to a panic among the dealer community, which then resulted in local jewelry outlets discovering at least ten more fake 10-ounce "gold bars" filled with Tungsten. Fast forward to today when a similar instance of gold counterfeiting has been discovered, this time in Canada, and where the fake bar in question had been "certified" by the highest possible authority.

Submitted by Ronan Manly, Bullionstar.com

In February 2017 while preparing for a presentation in Gothenburg about central bank gold, I emailed Sweden’s central bank, the Riksbank, enquiring whether the Riksbank physically audits Sweden’s gold and whether it would provide me with a gold bar weight list of Sweden’s gold reserves (gold bar holdings). The Swedish official gold reserves are significant and amount to 125.7 tonnes, making the Swedish nation the world’s 28th largest official gold holder.