European Union

When I was a boy, a carnival would come through town annually, with a Ferris wheel, a merry-go-round and, of course, a midway

The people of Europe have been the patsies in this grand scheme and are, at this point, experiencing decided buyer’s remorse.

"Why are Western leaders expressing their determination to “destroy” ISIS using all means necessary, while avoiding the most significant factor of all: the material infrastructure of ISIS’ emergence in the context of ongoing Gulf and Turkish state support for Islamist militancy in the region."

As was extensively reported over the weekend, the Pfizer-Allergan tax-inverting, reverse-merger (in which the far smaller Allergan would end up "buying" Pfizer, courtesy of fungible debt which doesn't care where it ends up as long as there are cash flows) would be announced this morning, and sure enough, moments ago the long-awaited press release finally hit.

As a result of the global commodity weakness, global stocks have fallen for the first time in six days as the sell-off in commodities continued, dragging both US equity futures and European stocks lower. However, putting this in context, last week the MSCI All Country World Index posted its biggest weekly gain in six weeks: alas, without a coincident rebound in commodity prices, it will be merely the latest dead cat bounce.

Mass surveillance at home and endless military projection abroad are the twin sides of the same coin of national security, which must simply be maximized as much as possible. Conspicuously missing from President Hollande’s decisive declaration of war however, was any mention of the biggest elephant in the room: state-sponsorship. A senior Western official familiar with a large cache of intelligence obtained this summer told the Guardian that “direct dealings between Turkish officials and ranking ISIS members was now ‘undeniable.’”

Painful as it is to admit, the West, especially the United States, bears significant responsibility for creating the conditions in which ISIS has flourished. The recent attacks should be understood as “blowback terrorism”: a dreadful unintended result of repeated US and European covert and overt military actions throughout the Middle East, North Africa, the Horn of Africa, and Central Asia that aimed to overthrow governments and install regimes compliant with Western interests. These operations have not only destabilized the targeted regions, causing great suffering; they have also put populations in the US, the European Union, Russia, and the Middle East at significant risk of terror.

Fed Speak became hawkish to telegraph to financial markets that the December meeting was a potential live meeting for a rate rise.

According to The Times, EU leaders are holding "secret" meetings to discuss the future of Europe's cherished Schengen Agreement which allows for passport-free travel within the bloc. As one unnamed diplomat put it, "the current system is simply not working."

Many campus activists have lashed out in frustration at “free speech purism,” which they regard as misplaced in the context of institutionalized oppression. But it is extremely short-sighted to sacrifice universal principle on the altar of identity politics for the sake of marginalized groups.

Between the French (Interior Minister Cazeneuve: "we're face with a new kind of terrorism", and Hungary (PM Orban: "allowing people into our own back yard" who may then commit acts of terrorism was irresponsible), AP reports that the EU's founding treaty with regard to passport-free travel - the so-called Schengen Agreement - is to be reformed. "We want Europe, which has lost too much time on a certain number of questions, to note the urgency and take decisions today," exclaimed Cazeneuve, with Orban adding "the founding treaty is currently an obstacle to this and I believe it needs to be reconsidered." According to Cazeneuve, the reforms will happen by year-end.

European Union countries are preparing to crackdown on virtual currencies such as bitcoin, and anonymous payments made online and via pre-paid cards "in a bid to tackle terrorism financing after the Paris attacks, acording to a draft document."

While await a full blown European version of the Patriot Act, we can say that the second part of the forecast just came true, because this morning The European Commission announced it had adopted a package of measures to strengthen control of firearms across the European Union and meant simply to make it "difficult to acquire firearms."