Turkey

Submitted by Michael Shedlock via MishTalk.com,

Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s carefully planned move to become legal dictator of Turkey is in its final stages. In the wake of a foiled coup, Erdogan removed or imprisoned every judge not on his side, shut down all opposition newspapers, and jailed all of his political opponents.

After his hand-picked court approved the changes Erdogan wanted, all that remains is a Public Referendum which Erdogan will win simply because he gets to count the votes.  

Turkey's biggest headache, its crashing currency which the central banks appears unable to contain due to an Erdogan order not to hike rates, could soon translate into another major problem. According to two senior economy officials, Turkish inflation could reach double digits in the first quarter for the first time in almost five years as a result of the lira's falls, putting more pressure on the central bank to hike interest rates.

In the immediate aftermath of the failed Turkish "coup" of July 2016, the immediate concern to the US was not the fate of the Erdogan regime, but whether the US would maintain access to Incirlik Air Base, a strategic output for the US airforce, allowing it fast and easy access to most of the Middle East and part of Russia even in the immediate absence of an aircraft carrier.

In a special report by Barclays' Michael Cohen, the analyst lays out what he believes are the 13 commodity "black swan threats" for the current year, divided into two "shock" categories: supply and demand, split evenly between bearish and bullish.

One week after a video emerged of the Berlin Christmas market truck killer, Anis Amri, pledging allegiance to ISIS, on Monday the Islamic State claimed responsibility for the deadly New Year’s Day terrorist attack in Istanbul that killed at least 39 people and wounded dozens more, claiming the operation had targeted Turkey in revenge for Turkish military operations against the organization in Syria, a similar justification used by the Turkish offduty policemen to assassinate the Russian ambassador in Turkey in December.