Europe

Leading English Premier League football (soccer) stars are demanding to be paid in euros because of the weak value of the Pound, according to Manchester United, the wealthiest club in world football.

As The FT reports, speaking at the KPMG Football Benchmark event in London on Wednesday. Cliff Baty, the English Premier League side’s chief financial officer said that last summer’s Brexit vote, which led to a sharp drop in the pound against the euro, had complicated the transfers of big-name players.

It is increasingly likely that Italy (which has been busy bailing out various insolvent banks while pretending it isn't) won't be the first nation to try out Europe's new BRRD "bail-in" insolvency directive. Instead, that honor may go to Spain where the sixth-largest bank, Banco Popular plunged the most in 28 years amid investor concerns that the bad debt-laden bank may have to liquidate as neither a buyer nor a new capital raise appear likely.

Even as attention has turned once again to Italy as the next possible source of European financial contagion, Spain's sixth largest bank has found itself in freefall over the past few days as concerns grow that the bank may be liquidated unless a last-minute buyer, or source of capital, emerges.

The day after Trump pulled out of the Paris Climate Accord, stocks are set for new all time highs with S&P futures up 0.2%, boosted by green markets across Europe and Asia, where the Nikkei rose above 20,000 for the first time since 2015. World stocks are set for new record highs, having already gained 11% so far this year, ahead of today's US nonfarm payrolls which are expected to increase by 185,000 jobs after surging 211,000 in April.

Authored by Peter Korzun via The Strategic Culture Foundation,

The recent NATO summit took a decision to formally become a member of the US-led coalition fighting the Islamic State (IS), in addition to its training mission in Iraq.