Europe

• Fed to sit tight on rates at March meet, hint at hikes to come (Reuters)
• Election setback a 'wake-up call' for Merkel, media and politicians say (Reuters)
• Germany’s Merkel under renewed attack after populists’ poll success (FT)
• Temperatures Rise on Eve of Next GOP Contests (WSJ)
• Carl Icahn setting up son to take his place: sources (Post)
• Turkey Vows Swift Retaliation After Bomb Kills 37 in Capital (BBG)
• One of Ankara bombers was female PKK member: Turkish security sources (Reuters)

The biggest macro development over the weekend was China's latest "gloomy" economic update, in which industrial production, retail sales and lending figures all missed estimates, however now that we are back to central bank bailout mode, bad news is once again good news, and the Shanghai Comp soared +1.7% among the best performers in Asia on calls for further central bank stimulus while the new CSRC chief also vowed to intervene in stock markets if necessary. In other words, the worse the data in China, the better.

Authored by Michael Klare via TomDispatch.com,

It would funny to watch as Chinese policymakers attempt to pull off the impossible if it weren’t so downright frightening.

Beijing, long the global engine for growth and trade, finds itself at a rather vexing crossroads. NBS protestations to the contrary, the Chinese economy is decelerating rapidly in the face of a massive rebalancing towards consumption and services-led growth. The country’s move away from a smokestack economy has for all intents and purposes reset assumptions regarding how we think about global trade.

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Politicizing Sports

Paul Craig Roberts

One of the world’s best female tennis players, Maria Sharapova, has been suspended, because a medicine she has been taking legally under a doctor’s prescription for ten years was suddenly retroactively declared to be a prohibited substance that is a “metabolic modulator.”