Turkey

"The liquidity picture for EM corporates in 2017 looks less appealing, due to a 38% yoy increase in USD bond maturities (to USD122bn) and lingering uncertainty on commodity prices (an important component of the corporate sectors’ cash flow) and FX (a headwind for domestic-oriented players). A further depletion in cash buffers and reduced appetite for certain portions of the EM corporate universe may lead to increased refinancing stress in 2017."

After being threatened with expulsion from the Schengen borderless Europe zone, Greece has grudignly accepted an offer from the European Union to "bolster its borders with foreign guards as well as other aid, including tents and first aid kits." In doing so it has last its last shred of state sovereignty.

"As the founding editor-in-chief of the Today's Zaman, I have sincerely tried to fulfill my job to the best of my ability, maintained the paper's integrity and tried to resist all kinds of pressure from the government as much as I could."

The vicious Isis attacks in Paris represent yet another unpardonable offense; and through war, Cameron and Hollande seek to avenge the innocents who were killed and wounded. But as the humiliating outcome of the Suez war reminds us, there are some problems to which war is an unsuitable response. Across much of the greater Middle East today, we confront one such problem. For western governments to reflexively visit further violence on that region represents not a policy but an abdication of policy. It’s past time to think differently.

"In the year ahead, geopolitics likely poses the greatest potential to disrupt markets in terms of event risk. There is also the potential for geopolitical risks to intersect with economic fragility in the event of a downturn, amplifying both."

For about three weeks, beginning on August 11, just about all anyone wanted to talk about were EM FX reserves, and for good reason. But because the market has a short memory, the global EM FX reserve liquidation story has been largely forgotten even as commodity prices remain in the doldrums and even as a laundry list of idiosyncratic factors are still weighing on the world’s most important emerging economies from Brasilia to Ankara to Beijing to Kuala Lumpur.

CNN Turkey, citing security forces officials, is reporting what appears to be yet another escalation in the middle east maelstrom as Turkish troops enter Iraq. So suddenly, just as the world is scrutinizing Turkey's role in the Islamic State oil trade, Ankara decides to send anti-ISIS troops across the border? Are they trying to secure the crude trade and guard the trafficking routes?

As Reuters reports, "Israel has quietly tested ways of defeating an advanced air-defense system that Russia has deployed in the Middle East and that could limit Israel's ability to strike in Syria or Iran, military and diplomatic sources said."

"Let’s be very clear: ISIS is not just a terrorist organization; it is a Sunni terrorist organization. That means it blocks and targets Shi’a. And that means it’s serving the interests of Turkey and Saudi Arabia - even as it poses a threat to them." - Retired Gen. Wesley Clark

"The outcome is a defeat both for the Danish government and the main opposition parties who had urged voters to back the proposal, arguing it was necessary for Denmark to combat cross-border crime and remain a member of Europol even after a planned overhaul of the intergovernmental police agency next year."

"I have been able to establish that there is a very high probability that Berat Albayrak is linked to the supply of oil by the Daesh terrorists."

According to the latest US naval map update from Startfor, the Truman is now off the Libyan coast, rapidly approaching Italy, and we expect is ahead of scheduled year-end ETA to its final destination, a few miles off the Syrian coast.

"When Russia courageously stepped into the breach we should have been applauding its willingness to confront ISIS. Instead, we continue to denigrate Russians as if they were still the Soviet Union and Putin, not Islamic terrorists, our most vicious enemy."