Europe

Submitted by Ron Holland via PravdaReport.com,

73 years ago on Christmas Eve 1942 German troops sang Silent Night on a European wide radio Christmas program from the distant battlefields of Nazi conquest outside Leningrad in the North and from surrounded Stalingrad on the southern Eastern Front to the Middle East. Also all across Nazi occupied Europe, from Italy and Norway to the Atlantic coastlines of Fortress Europe the soldiers sang to their families and listeners back home starting to question the promises of Nazi victory propaganda.

It has been over a month since the November 13 Paris terrorist suicide bombings and mass shootings and the subsequent warzone-like shutdown of Brussels, and Europe was just starting to emerge from its terrorized shell.

However, for a continent which wants to "use global issues as excuses to extend its power", issues such as terrorism in the words of the infamous 2008 AIG presentation, which serve as an "excuse for greater control over police and judicial issues; increase extent of surveillance" a return to normalcy is unacceptable.

In a weekend of little macro newsflow facilitated by the release of the latest Star Wars sequel, the biggest political and economic event was the Spanish general election which confirmed the end of the PP-PSOE political duopoly at national level, with Rajoy's leading block losing the absolute majority it had enjoyed since the last elections while rewarding the anti-austerity Podemos and the liberal Ciudadanos party, who between them took 109 seats in the 350-member parliament. As a result no clear governing majority emerged.

On Tuesday, we brought you Bloomberg’s top 10 “worst case scenarios” for 2016. The list, compiled by polling "dozens of former and current diplomats, geopolitical strategists, security consultants, and economists" included everything from devastating cyber attacks by Iranian and Russian hackers to a military coup in China. 

They even threw in a Trump victory in the national elections for good measure.

Last week we reported that in a move which the FT dubbed would "arguably represent the biggest transfer of sovereignty since the creation of the single currency" Brussels was about to propose the creation of a standing European border force that could take control of the bloc’s external frontiers — even if a government objected.