Europe

The ink was not yet dry on the seemingly endless Monsanto-Syngenta on again/off again takeover drama, when moments ago in a shocking development the newswires were lit up with news that a new, and very much unexpected, bidder has emerged for the Swiss pesticides giant Syngenta: China National Chemical Corp, or ChemChina as it is known, which according to WSJ and BBG is set to pay $43.7 billion to acquire a piece of Swiss corporate history.

• Punxsutawney Phil Does Not see shadow, signifying an early spring (CBS)
• Front-Runners Give Ground as Rivals Make Mark in Iowa (WSJ)
• Republican Cruz bests Trump in Iowa race, Clinton edges out Sanders (Reuters)
• Iowa Narrows the Field (BBG)
• Global stocks snap winning streak as oil pressure returns (Reuters)
• ‘Dark Pool’ Settlements Bring Tangled Relationships to Light (WSJ)
• BP Shares Plunge on Steep Loss Amid Oil Price Slide (WSJ)
• UBS Shares Tank on Wealth-Management Performance (WSJ)

It certainly does feel like groundhog day today because while last week's near record oil surge is long forgotten, and one can debate the impact the result of last night's Iowa primary which saw Trump disappoint to an ascendant Ted Cruz while Hillary and Bernie were practically tied, one thing is certain: today's continued decline in crude, which has seen Brent and WTI both tumble by over 3% has once again pushed global stocks and US equity futures lower, offsetting the euphoria from last night's earnings beat by Google which made Alphabet the largest company in th

An ex-ISIS militant has come forward and said that the terrorist regime possess at least 4 nuclear weapons, located in 4 major cities around the world, ready to detonate. According to Sallah Abdeslam the ‘clash of civilisations’ is scheduled to begin in 2016. He says that in Germany alone there are 18,000 terrorist cells waiting to commit untold catastrophe in Europe. He also says that nuclear bombs will be launched in United States, Germany, France and Russia.

Submitted by Jeff Thomas via InternationalMan.com,

On a daily basis, I receive emails from associates in the UK and Europe that speak of the sheer madness of allowing refugees in the millions to pour into Europe. The riot in Cologne, Germany, by some 1,000 men who sexually assaulted 90 women, and robbed and threatened others, offers insight as to the scale of riots that we may expect to see in the future.