United States

A few weeks ago, in what was described as one of the "worst-ever recorded attacks of its kind," the WannaCry ransomware virus spread the globe at an alarming rate, seizing control of private networks and demanding bitcoin payments to relinquish that control.  As we pointed out then, and not terribly surprisingly, those pesky "Russian hackers," the same ones that lay relatively dormant for years then suddenly emerged from hibernation in 2016 to hack the DNC, John Podesta and the entire 2016 U.S.

Just three weeks after reports first emerged that the Trump administration was considering arming the Syrian Kurd militia caught in the crossfire between Turkish and Syrian army forces, NBC reported that the American military has started shipping weapons and equipment to the Kurdish fighters of the Syrian Democratic Forces, also known as YPG, a key US ally on the ground in Syria. Citing an unnamed official, NBC adds that the U.S. began providing the equipment in the last 24 hours.

For all the criticism of Trump's first foreign trip, he seems to have achieved something quite unprecedented: he has united Germany's political parties in a common fury (to avoid using a harsher word) aimed squarely at the US president.

Tuesday's session started off on the back foot, with the Euro first sliding on Draghi's dovish comments before Europarliament on Monday where he signaled no imminent change to ECB’s forward guidance coupled with a Bild report late on Monday according to which Greece was prepared to forego its next debt payment if not relief is offered by creditors, pushing European stocks lower as much as -0.6%. However the initial weakness reversed after Greece's Tzanakopoulos denied the Bild report, sending the Euro and European bank stocks higher from session lows.

Authored by Andrei Akulov via The Strategic  Culture Foundation,

Putting together the bits of information coming from various sources leads to the conclusion that a US pre-emptive strike against North Korea is a possibility that may turn into reality pretty soon. Everyone knows it’s fraught with implications and nobody wants it but there is a good reason to believe it’s coming closer.