presidential election

After yesterday's presidential run-off round, the leader of Austria's anti-immigration, right-wing party, Norbert Hofer held a comfortable lead based on votes from the ground, with Hofer leading the independent, pro-EU candidate Van der Bellen by 51.9% to 48.1%, according to interior ministry data. However, in the end it all came down to the postal votes, and as BBC reports, the Green Party leader, Alexander Van der Bellen has won Austria's presidential election, preventing Norbert Hofer from becoming the EU's first far-right head of state, the BBC has been told.

Turkey is on the verge of a full military coup under Erdogan’s rule, experts have warned.  The situation in Turkey is rapidly deteriorating. Private debt is spiralling out of control, tourism is at an all-time low and Turkey’s currency continues to decline. Syrian Free Press reports: The 2013 Gezi protests and corruption charges against the government, the 2014 presidential election and two general elections in 2015 have put the Turkish economy under stress. Turkey’s annual growth rate, which for 50 years had averaged 4.5%, remained at an average 3% in the past four years.

Submitted by Lance Roberts via RealInvestmentAdvice.com,

Another week of volatility, but with no real resolution to the burning question of “where do we go next?” 

This past week, the release of the FOMC meeting minutes from April did little to solve the overall confusion. On Friday, I noted some key highlights from the minutes:

“Participants generally agreed that the risks to the economic outlook posed by global economic and financial developments had receded over the inter-meeting period.

 

Norbert Hofer from the Euro-sceptic, anti-immigration, far-right Freedom Party is close to winning Austria’s presidential election with 51.9 percent of the vote. Postal votes are to be counted by tomorrow. If confirmed, Hofer could become the first right-wing head of state on the European continent since the death of Hitler and the end of world war 2. Russia Today reports: The Ministry states that Green Party candidate Alexander van der Bellen garnered only 48.1 percent of the ballots cast.

Submitted by Matthew Tyrmand, originally posted in BL

Is Soros Funding An Agitprop Protest Movement to Destabilize Poland’s New Democratically Elected Government?

As I have written about at length in these pages; on October 25th the Polish people decisively elected a new government delivering the largest popular mandate in modern Polish history (the post-1989 period) to the right of center Law & Justice party (PiS- Prawo i Sprawiedliwosc).