Europe

What do Lloyd Blankfein, Jamie Dimon, James Gorman, John Thain, Jimmy Cayne, and any of the revolving door of AIG CEO’s have in common? Three things come to mind rather quickly: 1) All were financial executives during the 2008 global financial crisis. 2) All of their firms received massive public bailouts. 3) None of them went to jail for their firm’s involvement in said crisis. As a matter of fact, most are still plugged in somewhere on Wall Street, presumably helping to facilitate the next great financial crisis.

The US has deployed around 350 airmen and a dozen F-15C fighter jets to Iceland and the NetherlanDs as part of Operation Atlantic Resolve (OAR). The Pentagon’s is attempting to demonstrate a show of force, designed to deter what the US  has called ‘Russian aggression’ against Europe. However, Moscow says the Western hawks are simply using the perceived Russian threat in order to justify greater military spending.

Various far-right groups, including the anti-migrant Generation Identitaire movement, demonstrated in Belgium's notorious Molenbeek district, the notorious terrorist breeding ground of the Belgian capital, on Saturday. At the same time, leftist groups held counter-rallies. Though the demonstrations were banned in Brussels following the March attacks, several rallies still took place in Belgian capital.

Today's Wikileaks disclosure, in which two IMF officials hinted that the IMF may use a "credit event as a means to pressurize(sic) Greece" as it has been subsequently put by Greek officials, has elicited another round of widespread anger in Athens and could jeopardize the upcoming Greek debt negotiations.

In a global first, gene therapy that could prove life-saving for children has been recommended for approval in Europe. The pioneering technology to fix faulty genes has been developed by Italian scientists and GlaxoSmithKline FOX News reports: The European Medicines Agency (EMA) said on Friday it had endorsed the therapy, called Strimvelis, for a tiny number of children with ADA Severe Combined Immune Deficiency (ADA-SCID) for whom no matching bone marrow donor is available.