United States

A treaty loophole allows the Russian Air-force to fly surveillance missions over U.S. airspace. Russia is planning to ask the Open Skies Consultative Commission on Monday for permission to fly spy jets equipped with powerful high-tech cameras over U.S. skies. Daily Express reports: The planes have powerful digital cameras, which officials worry could be used to help Moscow gather sensitive intelligence. Russia is allowed to send surveillance jets over the US under the Open Skies Treaty, which allows 34 countries to conduct unarmed observation flights.

Submitted by Peter Schiff via Euro Pacific Capital,

“The industrial environment is in a recession - I don’t care what anybody says,” Fastenal CFO Daniel Florness exclaimed in frustration back in October when William Blair analyst Ryan Merkel dared to suggest that the US economy wasn’t in fact in the doldrums on the company’s Q3 call.

President Obama is fully aware of the fragile coalition that exists between the U.S. and Russia which has enabled the Syrian regime to gain the upper hand. But he is also aware of the threat from Saudi Arabia and Turkey of wanting to intervene militarily on the ground in Syria, and takes the threat of invasion from NATO ally Turkey seriously. The Syrian war is reaching a climax and the battle lines are changing.

Submitted by Erico Matias Tavares via Sinclair & Co.,

Dr. Tino Sanandaji is an economics researcher at the Stockholm School of Economics, Sweden. He holds a PhD from the University of Chicago. A Kurd from Iran who moved to Sweden at the age of 9, he has written extensively about immigration policy as a researcher and contributor to prominent Swedish journals such as the National Review and Real tid.