Turkey

Earlier we asked in "one may wonder if NATO-member Turkey's land invasion of Syria, which many have said was long overdue following months of rhetoric and belligerent posturing, under the pretext of ISIS "liberation", has just begun." A following report from the WSJ largely answers our question: citing unnamed defense officials, WSJ reports that after months of negotiations, "Turkey has agreed to let the U.S. military carry out airstrikes against Islamic State fighters from a U.S. air base near the Syrian border."

As the following clip from Turkey's DHA news agency shows, one may wonder if NATO-member Turkey's land invasion of Syria, which many have said was long overdue following months of rhetoric and belligerent posturing, under the pretext of ISIS "liberation", has just begun.

As President Obama’s nuclear deal with Iran is compared to Richard Nixon’s opening to China, Bibi Netanyahu must know how Chiang Kai-shek felt as he watched his old friend Nixon toasting Mao in Peking. The Iran nuclear deal is not on the same geostrategic level. Yet both moves, seen as betrayals by old U.S. allies, were born of a cold assessment in Washington of a need to shift policy to reflect new threats and new opportunities. Several events contributed to the U.S. move toward Tehran.

How hard do you work compared to the rest of the world?

More than 40,000 food items are being sold with a "poisonous" 10% Value Added Tax hike as of today, burdening the average Greek household with at least 55 euro extra costs per month.

Several hours ago, in yet another deadly bomb attack attributed to ISIS, at least 27 people were killed and more than 100 others injured in a powerful explosion in the town of Suruc in southeastern Turkey, 10 km from the Syrian border and across from the heavily contested town of Kobane in Syria where surprise ISIS attacks killed more than 200 people last month.

"...rising asset prices provide investors confirming evidence that their strategy is good and everything is fine. This induction problem lulls investors into a sense of confidence, and sets the stage for the shock when events turn down. That nonlinearity causes sudden change only adds to the confusion."

This is it. It is indeed historic. And diplomacy eventually wins. In terms of the New Great Game in Eurasia, and the ongoing tectonic shifts reorganizing Eurasia, this is huge: Iran — supported by Russia and China — has finally, successfully, called the long, winding 12-year-long Atlanticist bluff on its “nuclear weapons.” And this only happened because the Obama administration needed 1) a lone foreign policy success, and 2) a go at trying to influence at least laterally the onset of the new Eurasia-centered geopolitical order.

Whether China is busy championing trade deals outside of the US dollar, buying up some of the world’s biggest companies, taking over foreign housing markets, or building massive networks of nuclear or wind power grids, it is clear that the country is a world power to be reckoned with. To be considered a true force, China also needs to be able to back up its economic and political might with a top notch military. Today’s infographic compares the armed forces of China with the United States.

"The European Central Bank has introduced secret credit lines to Bulgaria and Romania as part of a broader effort to convince foreign regulators not to pull the plug on the local subsidiaries of Greek banks," FT reports.

While slightly later than expected, a comprehensive deal on Iran’s nuclear weapons program has now been reached. As Reuters reports, the agreement will be greeted with alarm in several quarters, both in Washington and Tehran and internationally too, and could yet unravel. Internationally, the deal will accelerate unease in some Arab states, including Saudi Arabia, but it is Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu who remains the fiercest public critic and has issued a warning that the accord will "inevitably lead to a nuclear war." The deal profoundly changes the balance of power in the region, but averts the conflict that was likely otherwise, but as ECStrat notes, Iran offers exceptional investment opportunities, but the near term impact will be to continue oil’s decline back to its lows, potentially taking energy stocks with it.

"Exchanges around the world are avidly wooing high-frequency traders, those controversial speed demons of Wall Street. Despite the often explosive debate over this kind of trading in the U.S., bourses in Mexico, Turkey, South Africa and beyond are trying to lure HFT types to boost business," Bloomberg reports.

Demand for Silver Eagles spiked in the first week of this month leading the U.S. Mint to run out of its entire August inventory of coins. This coincided with a counter-intuitive 3.8% plunge in price last Monday. It would appear that prices are being forced down. This is likely being done to scare investors away in order to protect some large banks who are net short silver - and for whom a surge in price would be damaging - and possibly to facilitate large unknown entities to accumulate large volumes of silver at a knockdown prices.

As far as transatlantic security is concerned, the danger posed by the Grexit is not confined to the questions it raises over Greece's NATO membership, or the security ripple effects caused by the Greek economy's collapse. Grexit's danger lies in the fact that it serves as a symbol of the reversal of transatlantic institutions' fortunes in their attempts to build and maintain a hegemonic political, economic and military order in Europe.

"Russia intends to support the revival of Greece's economy by broadening cooperation in the energy sector. Accordingly we are studying the possibility of organising direct deliveries of energy resources to Greece, starting shortly."