Europe

Authored by Brandon Smith via Alt-Market.com,

After the Manchester suicide bombing only two weeks ago I warned my readers that the repetition of terror attacks is breeding complacency within the public, in Europe most acutely. It is not uncommon now for attacks killing dozens to be forgotten within a week of the event. The news feeds are awash in distraction, and of course, sometimes these events themselves act as distractions.

In a recent newscast of MSNBC's “Morning Joe”, BBC anchor Katty Kay stated:

Negative interest rates and the populist uprising that spurred the UK to vote for Brexit and Americans to elect Trump has helped reignite a rush into physical safe haven assets like gold and silver, which however has led to a shortage of safe venues where to store the precious metals (unlike bitcoin, gold actually has a physical dimension). And now companies that operate storage facilities for precious metals and other valuables are ramping up their capacity to help cash in on the soaring demand for storage facilities.

Authored by Ruthie Blum via The Gatestone Institute,

The United Arab Emirates declared on Wednesday that anyone publishing statements sympathetic to Qatar could be punished with up to 15 years in prison, and said it would deny entry to anyone with a Qatari passport or resident visa.

Just four days after Banco UnPopular chairman Emilio Saracho told his employees "don't panic" as a result of the company's crashing stock price, on Wednesday morning the ECB confirmed that the sixth largest Spanish bank was indeed on the verge of collapse and ordered it to be sold, which is what happened when Santander acquired the bank for €1.00 after Santander's equity and riskiest debt instruments were bailed-in, i.e. wiped out, imposing losses of about €3.3 billion on the bank’s securities holders.