Ever since the U.S. Federal Reserve (Fed) began to consider raising the federal funds rate, which it eventually did in December 2015, a cottage industry has grown up around taper talk. Will the Fed raise rates, or won’t it? Each time a consensus congeals around the answer to that question, all the world’s markets either soar or dive.
The latest indication that behind the fake smiles at official, top level summits big tensions linger between British officials and their Chinese counterparts emerged overnight when Britain's Queen Elizabeth II was overheard on camera describing Chinese officials as "very rude" during a conversation with a senior police officer at an event celebrating her 90th birthday. The monarch was recorded making the candid remark, which followed Xi Jinping's first state visit to the UK last October, as she was introduced to guests at Buckingham Palace on Tuesday.
In a rather stunning move, France's prime minister Manuel Valls announced that the government would be invoking a little known, and seldom used, article of its constitution in order to bypass parliament and push through a controversial labor reform bill.
Thousands took to the streets throughout France on Tuesday evening after the government bypassed a parliamentary vote on a controversial labor reform and approved it with an edict. The French cabinet gave Prime Minister Manuel Valls the green light to use a rarely-invoked article of the constitution to bypass parliament and forcibly implement controversial labour reforms. Protests against the reforms, and the use of Article 49.3, flooded social media, showing mass demonstrations in several cities across France RT reports: Cashes erupted with police who used pepper spray against protesters.