Europe

Authored by Jeff Trag via The Gatestone Institute,

In a move that Bloomberg has defined as "signalling a turn away from the NATO military alliance that has anchored Turkey to the West for more than six decades" Turkey agreed to pay $2.5 billion to acquire Russia’s most advanced missile defense system, a senior Turkish official told Bloomberg on Thursday. The proposed deal which was first reported here back in November 2016, has been finalized and the preliminary agreement sees Turkey receiving two S-400 missile batteries from Russia within the next year, then producing another two inside Turkey.

One month ago, when describing the bizarre, not to mention systemically dangerous practice of dozens of small and mid-cap Chinese companies and executives offering to backstop losses on their employees' purchases of company shares, we couldn't quite explain it, although it seemed to revolve around a simple, and fraudulent, ponzi scheme: the same executives who were making the "make whole guarantee" had themselves taken out substantial loans collateralized by a pledge on their own stock.

By Chris at www.CapitalistExploits.at

About a month ago, the South African government raised the minimum threshold for black ownership of mining companies from 26% to 30%.

It's called "black empowerment" or "affirmative action" and is intended to provide black people with greater access to wealth, education, and to correct the inequality created by the white-led government who relinquished power in 1994 - 23 years ago.

Vol-sellers beware. That's the message from Natixis Global Asset Management’s Brett Olsen and Nicholas J. Elward, in their latest note, as they warn "it stands to reason that the market will see a reversion to the mean and find the VIX trading in the 20+ range before too long."