United States

The US military has disciplined over a dozen service members for the air strike on Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) hospital in Kunduz, Afghanistan, that killed 42 people last year. The U.S. has acknowledged that the clinic was struck 120 times by mistake. No personnel will face criminal charges, according to the Pentagon. The BBC reports: The Associated Press reported that the sanctions, which were not made public, were mostly administrative. Some received formal reprimands while others were suspended from duty.

It may be option expiration day (always leading to abnormal market activity) but it remains all about the weak dollar, which after crashing in the two days after the Fed's surprisingly dovish statement has put both the ECB and the BOJ in the very awkward position that shortly after both banks have drastically eased, the Euro and the Yen are now trading stronger relative to the dollar versus prior.

Trump and Sanders have whipped up a lot of popular support by opposing “free trade” agreements.

But it’s not just politics and populism … mainstream experts are starting to reconsider their blind adherence to the dogma that more globalization and bigger free trade agreement are always good.

UC Berkeley Economics professor Robert Reich – Bill Clinton’s Secretary of Labor – wrote last month:

The U.S. government is to patent a new quantum photonic imaging device that will detect anything underwater while providing unprecedented stealth for its submarines. Currently, submarines travelling through Arctic waters have to use gyroscopes and accelerometers to measure the motion and rotation of the vehicle in order to estimate the current position, orientation and velocity of another submarine – as GPS signals are unable to reach underwater.

The nuances of foreign policy do not feature heavily in the ongoing presidential campaign. Every candidate intends to “destroy” the Islamic State; each has concerns about Russian President Vladimir Putin, North Korea, and China; every one of them will defend Israel; and no one wants to talk much about anything else—except, in the case of the Republicans, who rattle their sabers against Iran.