iftttwall

In a startling confirmation of the rising power of Germany’s populist movement, on Friday Germany’s new Interior Minister Horst Seehofer declared that “Islam does not belong to Germany” while setting out hardline immigration policies in an interview published on Friday, in an attempt to ward off rising anti-immigration challengers.

“Islam does not belong to Germany,” Seehofer said, contradicting former German president Christian Wulff who fueled a debate over immigration in 2010 by saying Islam was part of Germany. In 2015 Merkel echoed Wulff’s words at a time when anti-immigration campaign group PEGIDA – or Patriotic Europeans Against the Islamisation of the West – was holding marches.

Closing the book on Merkel’s disastrous “open door” policies, Seehofer told Bild he would push through a “master plan for quicker deportations”, in his first major interview since he was sworn into office on Wednesday.

The minister – a member of Chancellor Angela Merkel’s CSU Bavarian allies who are further to the right than her own Christian Democrats – said he would also classify more states as “safe” countries of origin, which would make it easier to deport failed asylum seekers. The statements – an obvious attempt to court populist voters – come after Merkel’s conservatives, and their coalition allies – the Social Democrats – lost ground to the anti-immigrant Alternative for Germany (AfD) party in elections last year.

As Reuters notes, Seehofer is particularly keen to show his party is tackling immigration ahead of Bavaria’s October regional election, when the AfD is expected to enter that state assembly.

“Of course the Muslims living here do belong to Germany,” Seehofer said before going on to say Germany should not give up its own traditions or customs, which had Christianity at their heart.

“My message is: Muslims need to live with us, not next to us or against us,” he said.

According to the German government, between 4.4 and 4.7 million Muslims live in Germany today; most have a Turkish background and many of the more than a million migrants who have arrived in the country from the Middle East and elsewhere after Merkel adopted an open-door policy in mid-2015 are also Muslims.

* * *

In an amusing response from Andre Poggenburg, head of the AfD in the eastern state of Saxony, he said that Seehofer was copying his party with a view to Bavaria’s October regional election: “Horst Seehofer has taken this message from our manifesto word for word,” he said.

In other words the CDU is now the AfD. Who would have thunk it?

Meanwhile, the far-left Linke and Greens condemned Seehofer’s message, and the Social Democrats’ Natascha Kohnen told broadcaster n-tv: “Saying that incites people against each other at a time when we really don’t need that. What we really need is politicians who bring people together.”

In a coalition agreement, Merkel’s CDU/CSU conservative bloc and the Social Democrats agreed they would manage and limit migration to Germany and Europe to avoid a re-run of the 2015 refugee crisis. They also said they did not expect migration (excluding labor migration) to rise above the range of 180,000 to 220,000 per year.

via RSS http://ift.tt/2pfPEj2 Tyler Durden

Li Ka-shing, whose life journey from humble beginnings as a wartime refugee who used to sweep factory floors in Hong Kong for a living to Asia’s biggest business fortunes became the epitome of entrepreneurship that inspired generations of Hongkongers, has announced his retirement after seven decades at the pinnacle of one of the world’s largest corporate conglomerates and amassing one of Asia’s biggest fortunes from building skyscrapers to selling soap bars.

Starting with some local property investments that cemented his wealth, Li built a business empire that included retail, energy, ports, telecommunications, media and biotechnology companies worldwide. Overseas, Li-controlled companies are among the biggest foreign investors in the U.K.

“I have decided to step down as chairman of the company and retire from the position of executive director at the forthcoming annual general meeting of the company,” Li said in filings for CK Hutchison Holdings and CK Asset Holdings to the Hong Kong stock exchange on Friday.

“I am grateful to have been able to create value for shareholders all these years, and serve society,” Li said. “This has been my greatest honour. I thank everybody for their love and support.”

“Looking back all these years, it’s my honor to have founded Cheung Kong and to have served society,” Li told a packed room of journalists in Hong Kong on Friday. It’s been “my greatest honor,” he said.

As Bloomberg notes, the 89-year-old chairman of CK Hutchison Holdings Ltd. and CK Asset Holdings Ltd. will stay an adviser to the group after stepping down in May.

Li personifies some of the conflicts that came from the region’s rise: Dubbed “Superman” by local media for his business acumen, he symbolizes inequality in a city with one of the most lopsided wealth demographics on the planet. He is a property developer who has won admiration for his entrepreneurial skills and a manager with companies so dominant that they often stifle smaller competition.

He also is an uber-capitalist who courted communist leaders. A major figure in China’s emergence as an economic superpower, Li is the most prominent among a generation of Hong Kong tycoons who charged across the border after Deng Xiaoping and his successors promoted economic reforms. His investments in the mainland span across industries ranging from energy to retail and infrastructure.

His elder son Victor, 53, will take over a conglomerate that touches the lives – literally – of practically everyone in Hong Kong – the family’s Power Assets Holdings Ltd. generates their electricity and ParknShop supermarkets sell their groceries. The group also operates mobile-phone stores and Superdrug and Savers in the U.K., owns ports around the world and a controlling stake in Husky Energy Inc. in Canada.

With a fortune of $34 billion according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, Li has been a fixture as the city’s richest man for an entire generation of Hong Kongers and spearheaded an era defined by a handful of swashbuckling Chinese immigrants who built large empires across Asia.

For many, he is the face of the changing fortunes of Hong Kong as the former colony’s British elite gave way to Chinese dynasties.

“Li’s retirement symbolizes the end of an era,” said Joseph P.H. Fan, a professor at the Chinese University of Hong Kong, who has researched family-run businesses for two decades. “No one can replace Li Ka-shing as the legendary founder of the largest conglomerate in Hong Kong.”

His retirement announcement illustrates his confidence over business continuity, given that he has prepared his son for several decades, Fan said.

Li said he will dedicate his time and effort toward philanthropy, led by the KS-LK Foundation, especially on issues related to medical health, and social issues.

One of the earliest Hong Kong tycoons to invest in mainland China, Li dismissed criticisms that his company had been selling Chinese assets to transfer money offshore as “ridiculous and illogical”.

“Asset trading is par the norm for business. Our group has 40 billion yuan (US$6.33 billion) in projects along the coastal regions of China on natural gas, including a major gas production project by Husky Energy. Even if we have sold assets on the mainland, the money returns to the company and belongs to all shareholders, unless we sell the shares.”

Li, who represented Hong Kong’s rags-to-riches story, also has a piece of advice for Hong Kong’s youth. “There are many opportunities available to the youth of today. The most important thing for young people is that they must bolster their competitiveness through the accumulation of knowledge.”

* * *

Li was born July 29, 1928 in Chaozhou, a city in southern China’s Guangdong Province. His father was a school principal but the young Li’s formal education stopped at high school as invading Japanese troops reached Guangdong. Fleeing war-torn China for Hong Kong in 1940, Li found factory work while also caring for his ailing father, who soon died from tuberculosis. By the time he was a teenager, Li was working 16 hours a day at a plastics trading company.

After the war, Li made his first fortune as a manufacturer of plastic flowers. His career as property mogul began in the late 1950s when, unable to renew his lease, he bought the site of his factory.

In the years to come, Li invested in local real estate as others sold, most notably in 1967, when riots inspired by Mao Zedong’s Cultural Revolution in China rocked Hong Kong and sent property prices plunging.

His most symbolic coup as a businessman may have come in 1979, when he bought control of trading house Hutchison Whampoa from Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corp. Li quietly negotiated with the bank, now called HSBC Holdings Plc, to buy Hutchison shares for less than half their book value. HSBC agreed and Li became the first person of Chinese origin to own one of the British-founded companies that had dominated the local economy since the colony’s founding in 1841.

That reputation helped Li make inroads in China, where he mixed extensive political connections with financial interests. Li was a senior adviser to the Chinese government on Britain’s 1997 handover of Hong Kong and served on the committee that drafted the Basic Law, the city’s mini-constitution under Chinese rule.

His retirement announcement came “on a high note” as Li’s four biggest companies – CK Hutchison, CK Asset, CK Infrastructure Holdings Ltd. and Power Assets Holdings Ltd. – reported higher 2017 profits. All four stocks rose, though announcement came after the end of trading in Hong Kong.

Pragmatic until the end, at the press conference to announce the companies’ earnings, Li said he did not see mortgage rates in Hong Kong – one of the world’s priciest urban centres – to rise by more than two percentage points.

“Should people keep chasing after higher and higher flat prices? If you have sufficient funds, buying a flat for your own use is OK regardless of market prices, as long as you can afford the mortgage payment,” said Li, whose CK Asset was one of the city’s biggest property developers.

On China’s legislature proposed move to remove a term remit on the presidency that would allow President Xi Jinping to extend his term, Li said: “If I have had the right to vote on this issue, I would support Xi, because China’s anti-corruption campaign has been effective in the past few years. That is a fact.”

 

 

 

 

via RSS http://ift.tt/2FXgBBv Tyler Durden

Submitted by Bill Blain of Mint Partners

Sloppy Markets, but a new investment thesis: buy Macron’s Europe?

“Roll up that map, it will not be wanted these 50 years.…”

Its been a “sloppy” week in markets. Although the US stock market looks cosmetically strong, it’s largely on the back of Tech and Fangs – its not broadly spread. European markets are still languishing. Credit markets don’t feel they are going anywhere – it feels like they are already closed for the Easter Break. New deals have been underperforming, there’s a distinct sogginess in HY and Financials particularly.

I’ve attached a chart from our HY bond team showing the divergence between HY and Stock Sentiment this year – that is worth considering.

Why the lacklustre performance? Its not just the comings, but mainly goings, at the White House, Trump wanting a trade war (actually he doesn’t), or the Russians, or the host of other things.. It’s just that markets are suffering a distinct lack of empathy at the moment. No one feels particularly inclined to do anything… and if the whole market is sitting on its hands waiting… then I suspect we’ll be waiting a while longer..  

Meanwhile, its Friday, so traditionally I go off on a rant about something outrageously stupid and downright daft.

How about this one as an investment thesis for the next few years: “Invest in Europe – Post Brexit it might just Work!”

My first clue to this apparently hatstand investment thesis is Angela Merkel in Paris today to “celebrate” her fourth term in office with her French counterpart. Interesting…. the first thing the German Chancellor does in office is to fly to the side of the new Emperor of Europe.

My second input is my own opinion that we Brits are terrible Europeans. We don’t dance to the same tunes. We simply don’t have a common history with the continent – in fact we’re the literally other side of the story when it comes to the last 1000 years. While we obeyed all the Common Market and EU rules, and played the game according to the rules we’d read, we never saw Europe or understood it from the same perspectives as Core Europe. By trying to play a game the rules of which we couldn’t possibly understand, Britain became a break on further advancing the European cause.

With the UK out of the equation, core Europe can get on with the long-term project. They are more likely to succeed without us. Cynics might suggest the “long-term project” hasn’t changed over the past 500 years – the goal is German or French hegemony over the continent. On the other hand, a stronger Europe can’t be a bad thing in terms of global opportunities – can it?  

With Weidmann looking increasingly unlikely to ascend to the ECB throne when Draghi retires, some think its worth gaming through scenarios on the likely alternatives. While ECB Chair is a critical position – and without Draghi’s deft handling of the Eurozone crisis over the last 8 years I doubt the project would have survived – it doesn’t actually matter who gets the job.

What’s more important is going to be the agenda for the ECB going forward – and it’s being set from Macron’s desk in the Elysee Palace. Sooner than we think we’re likely to see a coordinated ECB and closer Union approach to Europe – driven by Macro and Micro fiscal policy and closer Union to ensure growth deliverables. European ministers and budgets may infuriate the Brexiteers as clear evidence of the pernicious power grab of European Bureaucrats, but its going to happen.

We’ve all seen what’s been occurring in Berlin – a desperate marriage of convenience between the Centre Left and Centre Right that will leave both squirming for relevance among their core supporters as each trades away core principals. They may have power – at the cost of fuelling a long term surge in Extreme Right. Germany remains the economic powerhouse of Europe, but I suspect its going to be politically muted in the new Europe.  

That gives Macron the time and opportunity to push his ideas and agenda to the responsive SFP. Merkel is taking her new finance minister Olaf Scholz to the Paris festivities. Macron will get a positive response from Scholtz when he proposes a single European Finance Minister, a massive investment boost and a host of other macro and micro initiatives – Merkel has little choice to accept. If she objects, the Grand German coalition is likely to fall apart.

The policy mix Macron and his cronies propose for Europe are wide ranging, and typically French. However, a solid mix of macro and micro fiscal policies plus clear direction and investment should work. Macron is not only in the driving seat, but he’s got a map that may just lead to the right place…

However, it might be worth considering why the last European experiment to achieve a unified European economy failed. I’m thinking of the 1800s when the “Continental System” Napoleon enforced across Europe failed. It failed because everyone wanted to trade with the UK. Even Napoleon’s own brothers (whom he’d elevated to European thrones) were dealing with pernicious Albion behind his back!

It might be a lesson for Modern Europe to consider as they factor in the post Brexit relationship with the UK. (OK – in 1807 the UK was a far more significant global economic power than today – but we still buy more German cars than anyone else!)

via RSS http://ift.tt/2GvRjbv Tyler Durden

After four consecutive days of failed upside breakouts in the S&P, some have noticed a change in sentiment, and as Georg Schuh, CIO of Deutsche Asset Mgmt told Bloomberg, “we have moved our view on stocks from ‘buy the dips’ to ‘sell the rebounds’.” adding that “I’m not ruling out one final peak in stocks, but we’re getting late in the cycle and we’re starting to see anecdotal evidence that points toward the end of the rally.“

The mood appears to be spreading and world stocks wavered, and the dollar eased on Friday as turmoil in the U.S. administration kept markets watchful at the end of a week scarred by concerns that U.S. tariffs could provoke a trade war. The MSCI All-Country World index was flat after three straight sessions of losses and was set for a weekly fall of around 0.6%.

Mood on the last day of the week is so subdued, Cramer’s “pajama traders” have not even attempted their traditional overnight spike in the ES.

European stocks drifted following a mixed session in Asia, while the dollar weakened largely as a result of a jump in Japan’s yen which helped drive down Bloomberg’s dollar index.  Japan’s currency rose against all its Group-of-10 peers as the Washington Post reported there was a plan to replace H.R. McMaster and it may be part of a broader shake-up including other senior officials. However, White House Press Secretary Sarah Sanders said there were no plans for any change at the National Security Council.

“A firing would just increase the market’s nervousness about the turnover in the White House administration,” said Mansoor Mohi-uddin, head of currency strategy at NatWest Markets in Singapore. “It would also make investors more concerned about whether officials in the White House who are more in favor of free trade are now leaving the Trump administration.”

Investors continue to weigh the prospects for heightened U.S. trade protectionism after new White House appointee Larry Kudlow said he’d sell gold and buy the greenback, which gained on Thursday. Also on Thursday, the New York Times reported that U.S. Special Counsel Robert Mueller had issued a subpoena for documents, including some concerning Russia, related to President Donald Trump’s businesses.

“Trump isn’t giving markets much respite,” said Rabobank analyst Bas van Geffen in a note. “While still vague at best, the subpoena does bring the investigation yet another step closer to the president. Markets certainly didn’t like the added uncertainty.

Overnight technical problems at German exchanges lead to delayed open for various products and muted trading session. The USD/JPY edged through overnight low despite denials from White House that McMaster is getting fired. Emerging market FX underperformed again led by TRY. European equity markets hold small gains, with the mining sector outperforms after metals partially retrace yesterdays sell-off; U.S. equity futures remain in a tight range. Bunds edge higher with most noting the large dropoff in supply next week; USTs back toward yesterday’s high, curve flattens further with focus likely to be on today’s Libor fix.

Asian stocks traded mixed following an indecisive lead from the US and as overnight trade lacked any tangible catalysts to dictate price action. Australia’s ASX 200 (+0.5%) and Nikkei 225 (-0.6%) were mixed with Australia led by Consumer Staples as Wesfarmers shares surged on plans to spin off its Coles supermarket chain, while Nikkei 225 was kept subdued by a firmer JPY and as cover up allegations were fuelled by reports PM Abe knew of the document alterations days before the public admission. Elsewhere, Hang Seng and Shanghai Comp. were choppy after the PBoC skipped open market operations and instead announced to lend CNY 327bln via its MLF.

Following Asia’s subdued close to the week, European shares found some support in dealmaking activity although the STOXX 600 was on track for a 0.2 percent weekly loss. The final European session of the week saw bourses trading in mixed fashion following from the indecisive lead from Asian and US counterparts. On a sector basis, energy names were outperforming this morning amid the slight push higher in oil prices. UK homebuilders are lagging in the FTSE 100, after Berkeley Group warned over challengers in increasing housing supply further. Elsewhere, NEX Group (+35%) shares surge the most in history after they confirmed that CME Group have approached them.

The Bloomberg Dollar Spot Index gave up its weekly gains on concerns of more White House changes following reports Trump was ready to remove his national security adviser, adding to concern about more political turmoil in Washington. The gauge of dollar strength retreated on Friday as investors with long-dollar positions found themselves under pressure due to the continuing uncertainties surrounding Trump administration. The yen rose against all its Group-of-10 peers as the Washington Post reported there was a plan to replace H.R. McMaster and it may be part of a broader shake-up including other senior officials. White House Press Secretary Sarah Sanders said there were no plans for any change at the National Security Council.

Still, in light of the ongoing funding shortage which yesterday sent the Libor-OIS and FRA-OIS soaring to fresh 6 year highs, it is possible that the USD sees a sharp squeeze higher in the coming days.

Here are the other notable overnight FX moves, from Bloomberg:

• Haven currencies led by the yen advanced against the dollar and U.S. Treasuries rose after U.S. President Donald Trump was reported to be ready to remove his national security adviser H.R. McMaster, fueling concerns of more turmoil inside the administration, even as it was denied by White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders
• The euro edges up on the day, trading near the middle of its range since mid-January amid a trend of falling realized volatility seen over the past six weeks, causing Bollinger bands to narrow
• The pound advanced amid optimism that the U.K. will be able to hash out a deal on the Brexit transition phase with the EU by next week’s summit; still, the U.K. has significant ground to cover on the Irish question if it wants to get a deal on the transition phase next week, according to three European diplomats
• Slowing factory growth helped prompt the New Zealand dollar to weaken against the Aussie, which itself was under fire from macros and option accounts

Southern European government bonds outperformed their higher-rated peers as another ECB policymaker warned that inflation in the euro zone is still proving elusive, a potential hurdle to the withdrawal of monetary stimulus. Other euro zone bond yields also dipped. Germany’s 10-year bond touched a fresh five-week low of 0.57%.

U.S. Treasuries yields dipped to 2.815 percent US10YT=RR after having hit a near two-week low of 2.797 percent on Thursday. The two-year yield US2YT=RR steadied after hitting a 9 1/2-year high of 2.295 percent as investors prepared for a widely expected interest rate increase by the Federal Reserve next week.

Weakness in the dollar helped copper prices recover from early falls. Three-month copper on the London Metal Exchange was up 0.52 percent at $6,956 a ton. Oil prices edged up but were set to fall this week on concerns among investors about rising supply from the United States and elsewhere threatening to undermine efforts by OPEC and other producers to tighten the market.

Market Snapshot

• S&P 500 futures up 0.1% to 2,757
• STOXX Europe 600 unchanged at 376.88
• MSCI Asia Pacific down 0.1% to 178.50
• MSCI Asia Pacific ex Japan down 0.1% to 587.64
• Nikkei down 0.6% to 21,676.51
• Topix down 0.4% to 1,736.63
• Hang Seng Index down 0.1% to 31,501.97
• Shanghai Composite down 0.7% to 3,269.88
• Sensex down 1.1% to 33,316.33
• Australia S&P/ASX 200 up 0.5% to 5,949.42
• Kospi up 0.06% to 2,493.97
• German 10Y yield fell 1.0 bps to 0.566%
• Euro up 0.1% to $1.2320
• Brent Futures up 0.02% to $65.13/bbl
• Italian 10Y yield fell 2.7 bps to 1.73%
• Spanish 10Y yield fell 2.7 bps to 1.355%
• Brent Futures unchanged at $65.12/bbl
• Gold spot up 0.2% to $1,318.85
• U.S. Dollar Index down 0.2% to 90.00

Top overnight News:

• President Donald Trump is not about to oust his national security adviser, H.R. McMaster, according to White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders, even as speculation intensified that McMaster’s departure had already been decided. Washington Post earlier reported that President Trump has decided to remove H.R. McMaster as his national security adviser
• Special Counsel Robert Mueller may have crossed a line President Donald Trump set out early in the investigation into possible Russian meddling with his latest move: a reported subpoena of the Trump Organization.
• The U.K. has significant ground to make up on the Irish border issue before next week’s summit where it aims to clinch a deal on a Brexit transition period, European diplomats said.
• Parliament’s upper and lower house quickly confirmed BOJ Governor Kuroda’s appointment, and that of his new deputies Masayoshi Amamiya and Masazumi Wakatabe, as lawmakers continued their focus on the controversial land deal linked to Abe and the finance ministry’s tampering with associated documents.
• The support rate for Japan Prime Minister Abe’s cabinet fell to 39.3% — down 9.4 percentage points from a similar poll last month — according to a survey by Jiji Press. Disapproval exceeded approval for the first time in five months in a sign that new revelations in a long-simmering land-sale scandal could threaten his government
• The U.S. sanctioned a St. Petersburg-based “troll farm,” a close ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin, two Russian intelligence services and other Russian citizens and businesses indicted by Special Counsel Robert Mueller on charges of meddling with the 2016 U.S. presidential election.
• Reserve Bank of Australia Deputy Governor Guy Debelle said global investors are underpricing the uncertainty over the future path of interest rates, warning markets are likely to see higher volatility
• Trump’s decision to fire Tillerson has put the Iran nuclear agreement at risk and cast new uncertainty on a meeting of the accord’s signatories on Friday
• ECB policy maker Peter Praet opposed shifting the institution’s language on its stimulus plans any time soon, saying rising labor supply suggests the euro-area’s economic slack may be greater than previously thought
• Japan’s labor unions won pay raises for workers, although they’re still too small to generate the big increase in consumption that the Bank of Japan needs for inflation. BOJ Governor Haruhiko Kuroda secured parliamentary backing for a fresh five-year term
• Euro-area inflation slowed more than initially estimated last month, highlighting the challenge facing the European Central Bank as it tries to stoke prices
• Swimming in it. the prospect of more Bank of England interest- rate increases this year threatens to add pressure on more than 3 million Britons already in severe debt
• Investors poured $43.3b into equity funds, the most on record, analysts at BofAML say in research note citing EPFR Global data for week ending March 14

Asian stocks traded mixed following an indecisive lead from the US and as overnight trade lacked any tangible catalysts to dictate price action. ASX 200 (+0.5%) and Nikkei 225 (-0.6%) were mixed with Australia led by Consumer Staples as Wesfarmers shares surged on plans to spin off its Coles supermarket chain, while Nikkei 225 was kept subdued by a firmer JPY and as cover up allegations were fuelled by reports PM Abe knew of the document alterations days before the public admission. Elsewhere, Hang Seng (Unch.) and Shanghai Comp. (Unch.) were choppy after the PBoC skipped open market operations and instead announced to lend CNY 327bln via its MLF, while US equity futures were briefly pressured on administration instability concerns after initial reports that National Security Adviser McMaster was said to be removed from position, although this was later denied by the White House. Finally, 10yr JGBs were marginally higher with support seen amid losses in Japanese stocks and with the BoJ also present in the market with its Rinban amounts left unchanged, while Aussie yields declined across the curve following a 10yr auction in which the average yield was down nearly 20bps from prior.

Top Asian News

• China’s Holdings of U.S. Treasuries Drop to Six-Month Low
• China Stocks Slide in Late Afternoon Trade as End of NPC Nears
• Japan’s Labor Unions Squeeze Small Pay Rise From Top Companies
• Samsung Elec. Stock Trading to Be Halted April 30-May 3 on Split

European markets picked up on the subdued Asian sentiment in the final session of the week mixed fashion following from the indecisive lead from its Asian and US counterparts. On a sector basis, energy names are outperforming this morning amid the slight push higher in oil prices. UK homebuilders are lagging in the FTSE 100, after Berkeley Group warned over challengers in increasing housing supply further. Elsewhere, NEX Group (+35%) shares surge the most in history after they confirmed that CME Group have approached them.

Top European News

• Italy’s Five Star at 34.5%, League 22.3% in SWG Poll: Messaggero
• FCA Probing Claims U.K. Bookmakers Created ‘False Market’: FT

In FX, the Bloomberg Dollar Spot Index gives up weekly gain after U.S. President Donald Trump was reported to be ready to remove his national security adviser, adding to concern about more political turmoil in Washington. The gauge has retreated on Friday as investors with long-dollar positions find themselves under pressure due to the continuing uncertainties surrounding Trump administration. The yen rose against all its Group-of-10 peers as the Washington Post reported there was a plan to replace H.R. McMaster and it may be part of a broader shake-up including other senior officials. White House Press Secretary Sarah Sanders said there were no plans for any change at the National Security Council. USD/JPY dropped 0.7% to 105.65; part of the yen gains could be down to funds’ repatriation and not just on a risk-off basis. The EUR/USD 0.2% to 1.2333; flows have remained muted throughout the week, traders in Europe say; pair shrugs off miss in euro-area final CPI reading for February. Technically, the euro faces a symmetrical triangle test that could signal its medium-term direction. Sterling found good support after London open, hitting its strongest level this month versus the euro at 0.8816. GBP/USD gains as much as 0.3% to 1.3980, on track for a second weekly advance; all eyes on Brexit talks before BOE meeting on March 22. Kiwi led losses in G-10; New Zealand’s currency weakened due to sales against the Aussie, which itself was under fire from macros and option accounts, according to another Asia-based FX trader. NZD/USD slipped 0.3% to 0.7256, having earlier touched 0.7241 low.

Commodities markets have seen a slight reprieve this morning with oil prices making marginal gains, however WTI fell short by around USD 0.10 off yesterday’s high of USD 61.55/bbl. In the metals complex, gold has pushed up by USD 4/oz, having found support at the earlier weeks low of USD 1313.70/oz

Looking at the day ahead, February housing starts and building permits, February industrial production, January JOLTS and March University of Michigan consumer sentiment data cap off the week.

US Event Calendar

• 8:30am: Housing Starts, est. 1.29m, prior 1.33m; MoM, est. -2.71%, prior 9.7%
  • Building Permits, est. 1.32m, prior 1.4m; MoM, est. -4.14%, prior 7.4%
• 9:15am: Industrial Production est. 0.4%, prior -0.1%; Manufacturing (SIC) Production, est. 0.5%, prior 0.0%
  • Capacity Utilization, est. 77.7%, prior 77.5%
• 10am: JOLTS Job Openings, est. 5,917, prior 5,811
• 10am: U. of Mich. Sentiment, est. 99.3, prior 99.7; 1 Yr Inflation, prior 2.7%; 5-10 Yr Inflation, prior 2.5%

DB’s Craig Nicol concludes the overnight wrap

While markets have spent much of the last 24 hours struggling for direction there is still an underlying feeling of caution in the air. The unpredictable headlines which seem to be coming out of Washington on an almost daily basis now is certainly keeping markets on edge and its perhaps little surprise that the S&P 500 has now fallen every day this week and has notched up its first four-day losing streak of the year. By the way today actually marks 10 years to the day that JP Morgan originally agreed to buy Bear Stearns for $2 a share. As a bit of fun, we looked at the EMR from that day and we were reminded that that week also included the Eliot Spitzer scandal, the Fed announcing the introduction of the TSLF and a market priced roughly 50/50 for a 100bp Fed rate cut the next day! That’s one way of making current markets look dull.

So as we said above, markets ended up a bit mixed yesterday but actually kicked off on the front foot before the Mueller news (more on that below) put the brakes on. Indeed the S&P 500 closed -0.08% and is now down -1.41% this week. The Nasdaq also fell -0.20% while the Dow (+0.47%) actually held its head above water. In Europe the DAX and Stoxx 600 closed +0.88% and +0.52% respectively.

Bond markets were a bit more subdued with yields largely 1-2bps lower in Europe and 10y Treasuries +1.1bps up. The Treasury curve didn’t stop flattening however with 2s10s 1.6bps flatter yesterday which puts the weekly move at   over 9bps, while 5s30s were -1.4bps flatter yesterday and therefore over 7bps flatter this week. Meanwhile the VIX closed down less than a point and appears to have settled into this 15-20 range ever since the big vol spike last month. Elsewhere the USD index (+0.48%) nudged a little higher while Gold (-0.66%) fell by the most since in nearly weeks.

The most significant news yesterday came quite late in the US session as the NY Times broke with a story saying that special counsel Robert Mueller had subpoenaed Trump and his organization to turn over documents. That includes those related to Russia. The article noted the breadth of the subpoena was not clear but this is the first known instance of Mueller demanding records directly related to President Trump’s businesses. The White House press   secretary Ms Sanders noted the President was cooperating with the inquiry and referred question to the Trump Organization.

Staying with politics, yesterday we also got the news that US Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer is to present his recommendations to President Trump in the coming weeks regarding the China intellectual property investigation. White House trade adviser Peter Navarro told CNBC that “this will be one of the many steps the president is courageously going to take to address unfair trading practices”. So this is certainly one to watch.

The other main headline grabber yesterday concerned some of the rhetoric around the Russia/UK diplomatic tensions. The leaders from US, Germany, France and UK have formally signed a joint statement that accused Russia of the “first offensive use of a nerve agent in Europe since World War II”. At the same time the US announced new sanctions to be placed on Russia on five groups and 19 individuals. Russia’s administration did respond yesterday with Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov saying that he will “certainly” expel British diplomats.

In terms of the main overnight news and in case you hadn’t had enough of the White House merry go round, the  Washington Post released a story early this morning suggesting that President Trump has decided to replace his national security adviser H.R McMaster. The White House were quick to push back on the story however it remains to be seen with the WSJ subsequently releasing a story also suggesting that McMaster could be on his way out. Sentiment in Asia is softer overnight with the Nikkei (-0.47%), Kospi (-0.10%) and Hang Seng (-0.02%) all down.

Moving on. With regards to the latest Brexit developments, yesterday the EU published their latest version of the draft legal wording around the Brexit withdrawal agreement. The main note to make is that it included a new good faith clause which PM May had asked for. With regards to the contentious Northern Ireland issue, there was no change in text with the EU maintaining the message that it needs to remain part of the Single Market and customs union. Away from that, a Bloomberg story yesterday suggested that Brexit Secretary David Davis was predicting a transition deal period as soon as next week. This comes ahead of his meeting with the EU’s Michel Barnier next week.

On the same topic, yesterday the third largest company in the FTSE 100, Unilever, announced that it was moving its headquarters from the UK to Netherlands. As the FT highlighted, it’s likely to come as something of a blow to PM May as it will likely be seen as waning confidence in the UK as a result of Brexit.

In other news, yesterday’s economic data in the US was largely a mixed bag. The March Empire manufacturing index was above market at 22.5 (vs. 15.0 expected). The March Philly Fed business outlook index (22.3 vs. 23.0 expected) and the NAHB Housing market index (70 vs. 72 expected) were both slightly below expectations, although the former continued to point to upward pressure on prices paid. Elsewhere, the February import price index was above expectations (+0.4% mom vs. +0.2%) and outpaced the export price index of +0.2% mom.  Finally, the weekly initial jobless claims (226k vs. 228k expected) and continuing claims (1,879k vs. 1,903k expected) prints were both more or less in line.

In Europe, the final reading of France’s February CPI was confirmed at +1.3% yoy. The Swiss National Bank has left its deposit rate unchanged at -0.75% as widely expected. The SNB noted “the situation in the FX market is still fragile and monetary conditions may change rapidly”, making negative rates and SNB’s willingness to intervene in FX market essential. The bank now forecasts CPI of +0.9% in 2019 and +1.9% in 2020.

Looking at the day ahead, the most notable release in Europe will be the final February CPI report for the Euro area. In the US, February housing starts and building permits, February industrial production, January JOLTS and March University of Michigan consumer sentiment data cap off the week.

via RSS http://ift.tt/2tTuV9A Tyler Durden

The Trump administration has blamed the Russian government for a series of cyber attacks targeting American and European nuclear power plants and other critical utilities dating back at least two years, raising fears that the Kremlin could disrupt the West’s critical infrastructure in the event of a conflict.

The hackers also reportedly targeted the overall energy sector, along with commercial facilities, aviation, manufacturing and the water supply, according to a U.S. security alert published Thursday. 

The Department of Homeland Security and FBI said in the alert that a “multi-stage intrusion campaign by Russian government cyber actors” had targeted the networks of small commercial facilities “where they staged malware, conducted spear phishing, and gained remote access into energy sector networks.” The alert did not name facilities or companies targeted. –Reuters

The report says that Russians used various hacking techniques, including spear-phishing emails, watering-hole domains, credential gathering and open-source and network reconnaissance. From the NYT:

Russian hackers made their way to machines with access to critical control systems at power plants that were not identified. The hackers never went so far as to sabotage or shut down the computer systems that guide the operations of the plants.

Still, new computer screenshots released by the Department of Homeland Security on Thursday made clear that Russian state hackers had the foothold they would have needed to manipulate or shut down power plants.

“We now have evidence they’re sitting on the machines, connected to industrial control infrastructure, that allow them to effectively turn the power off or effect sabotage,” said Eric Chien, a security technology director at Symantec, who added “From what we can see, they were there. They have the ability to shut the power off. All that’s missing is some political motivation.”

Thursday’s announcement from DHS marks the first official claim that the Kremlin attacked the power grid.

It was the first time the administration officially named Russia as the perpetrator of the assaults. And it marked the third time in recent months that the White House, departing from its usual reluctance to publicly reveal intelligence, blamed foreign government forces for attacks on infrastructure in the United States.

Vikram Thakur of Symantec Security Response said that gaining access to networks tied to various segments of U.S. infrastructure is extremely difficult, adding that cyberattacks like the ones described in the DHS announcement have the potential to cause significant damage. 

“The only thing that holds an attacker back is political motivation,” Thakur told CNN, adding “Usually the bar for flipping the switch is extremely high.”

The announcement coincided with the U.S. Treasury Department’s Thursday decision to slap sanctions on 19 Russians and five groups – including the Kremlin’s intelligence services for meddling in the 2016 U.S. presidential election, along with various other cyber crimes. 

Russia has previously denied the charges.

In December, 2016 the Washington Post erroneously reported  that Russian hackers had penetrated the electric grid in Vermont using malicious code associated with the hacking operation dubbed “Grizzly Steppe” by the Obama administration. WaPo corrected the story 48 hours later with the publication of a new article. 

The New York Times notes that “American officials and security firms, including Symantec and CrowdStrike, believe that Russian attacks on the Ukrainian power grid in 2015 and 2016 that left more than 200,000 citizens there in the dark are an ominous sign of what the Russian cyberstrikes may portend in the United States and Europe in the event of escalating hostilities.”

via RSS http://ift.tt/2G2XV3g Tyler Durden

Authored by Nafeez Ahmed via Oriental Review,

The official claim that ‘Novichok’ points solely to Russia has been discredited…

On Monday, Prime Minister Theresa May announced that former Russian spy, Sergey Skripal and his daughter Yulia, were poisoned with “a military-grade nerve agent of a type developed by Russia” known as ‘Novichok’.

The chemical agent was identified by the Defence Science and Technology Laboratory at Porton Down. May referred to the British government’s “knowledge that Russia has previously produced this agent and would still be capable of doing so” as a basis to conclude that Russia’s culpability in the attack “is highly likely.”

On these grounds, she claimed that only two scenarios are possible:

“Either this was a direct act by the Russian State against our country. Or the Russian government lost control of this potentially catastrophically damaging nerve agent and allowed it to get into the hands of others.”

The British government’s line has been chorused uncritically by the entire global press corps, with little scrutiny of its plausibility.

But there is a problem: far from offering a clear-cut evidence-trail to Vladimir Putin’s chemical warfare labs, the use of Novichok in the nerve gas attack on UK soil points to a wider set of potential suspects, of which Russia is in fact the least likely.

Russia did actually destroy its nerve agent capabilities according to the OPCW

Yet a concerted effort is being made to turn facts on their head.

No clearer sign of this can be found than in the statement by Ambassador Peter Wilson, UK Permanent Representative to the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW), in which he claimed that Russia has “failed for many years” to fully disclose its chemical weapons programme.

Wilson was parroting a claim made a year earlier by the US State Department that Russia had not made a complete declaration of its chemical weapons stockpile: “The United States cannot certify that Russia has met its obligations under the Convention.”

Yet these claims are contradicted by the OPCW itself, which in September 2017 declared that the independent global agency had rigorously verified the completed destruction of Russia’s entire chemical weapons programme, including of course its nerve agent production capabilities.

OPCW Director-General, Ahmet Üzümcü, congratulated Russia with the following announcement:

“The completion of the verified destruction of Russia’s chemical weapons programme is a major milestone in the achievement of the goals of the Chemical Weapons Convention. I congratulate Russia and I commend all of their experts who were involved for their professionalism and dedication. I also express my appreciation to the States Parties that assisted the Russian Federation with its destruction program and thank the OPCW staff who verified the destruction.”

The OPCW’s press statement confirmed that:

“The remainder of Russia’s chemical weapons arsenal has been destroyed at the Kizner Chemical Weapons Destruction Facility in the Udmurt Republic. Kizner was the last operating facility of seven chemical weapons destruction facilities in Russia. The six other facilities (Kambarka, Gorny, Maradykovsky, Leonidovka, Pochep and Shchuchye) completed work and were closed between 2005 and 2015.”

The OPCW’s reports on Russia confirm that the agency found no evidence of the existence of an active Novichok programme. It should be noted that Dr. Robin M. Black, formerly of Porton Down’s Defence Science and Technology Laboratory, sits on the Scientific Advisory Board of the OPCW. And a scientific review by Dr. Black also raised doubts about Novichok, noting that its properties and structures had not been independently confirmed.

So in short, the OPCW does not agree with the vague US and British insistence that Russia failed to declare all its chemical weapons stockpiles and facilities, and does not agree with the insistence that Novichok stockpiles or production facilities still exist in Russia. But it seems that neither does His Excellency Peter Wilson himself.

Amb. Peter Wilson (United Kingdom)

In a statement to the OPCW in November 2017, Ambassador Wilson congratulated the OPCW on verifying the complete destruction of Russia’s chemical weapons programme with high praise for its director, Ahmet Üzümcü. Wilson listed the latter’s numerous achievements including:

“… the completion of the verified destruction of Russia’s declared chemical weapons programme.”

He did not say anything about Russia’s actions being incomplete, or OPCW’s actions being inadequate. So how credible is his recent insinuation that the OPCW’s position is wrong?

Arguably, not very. The lack of credibility of the Anglo-American critique of Russia’s destruction of its chemical weapons was called out in a detailed report by the respected Clingandael Institute of International Relations. The report, co-funded by the European Union, criticised the United States for adopting an unhelpful politicised approach to the chemical weapons issue in relation to Russia, while hypocritically delaying its own compliance obligations, all of which was done in a manner which bypassed OPCW mechanisms. It’s worth reproducing that entire text in full:

“… on a political level there have been some drawbacks. Particularly interesting is that compliance concerns tend to be raised by the US, while this state is itself being criticized for delays in disarmament. In 2005, the US expressed concern about active offensive CW research and development (R&D) programmes, as well as inaccurate declarations regarding past CW transfers and undeclared CW facilities in Russia, China, Iran, Libya and Sudan. The US decided to address these concerns through bilateral channels, rather than directly engaging formal OPCW mechanisms. In the meantime, the US itself has been criticized for exporting arms classified as ‘toxicological agents’ (notably tear gas) to numerous countries in the Middle East (between 2009–13). Since 9/11, the US has also intensified its R&D on non-lethal chemical agents, along with new means of delivery and dispersal. The CWC (Article II, para. 2) does cover chemical compounds with incapacitating or irritant effects… Taken together with the delay in destroying US CW stockpiles, this has taken a toll on the US’ standing within the CWC, undermining its role as a ‘regime hegemon’. Since these compliance concerns remain unresolved, this has also, ipso facto, affected the authority of the CWC, and hence the OPCW.”

At this point, neither the US nor Britain have offered any actual evidence as to why the OPCW’s verification process regarding Russia’s dismantlement of its chemical weapons capability should be disbelieved. They have provided no evidence that Russia retains any Novichok stockpiles.

The OPCW is, of course, the same agency whose independent investigations the West is relying on to determine culpability in major chemical weapons attacks in Syria. Why, then, would the OPCW’s conclusions on Syria be considered gospel truth, while its conclusions on Russia be rejected?

Other states have Novichok capabilities, but the British government doesn’t want to investigate them

The OPCW’s authoritative verdict on Russia’s now destroyed chemical weapons capabilities should be enough to give anyone pause for thought in rushing to judgement concerning Russian responsibility for the Novichok attack.

Instead, the British government appears to have no interest in investigating the fact that there are other state agencies with significant nerve agent capabilities. Like its ally, the United States.

Under Boris Yeltsin, who won Russian elections thanks to Western covert meddling, the Russian government had declared that it was not stockpiling Novichok. This is why Yeltsin did not report Novichok’s existence under chemical-weapons conventions at the time — because the official Russian position was that the stockpiles no longer existed. Yeltsin’s Western allies did not disagree at the time.

On the contrary, the Americans were involved in the dismantlement of Russia’s remaining Novichok capabilities.

In August 1999, as the BBC reported, US defence experts arrived in Uzbekistan to help “dismantle and decontaminate one of the former Soviet Union’s largest chemical weapons testing facilities.” The facility was known as “a major research site for a new generation of secret, highly lethal chemical weapons, known as Novichok”, and provided the US ample opportunity to learn about this nerve agent and reproduce it for testing and defence purposes.

But it is not just the US. According to Craig Murray — former US Ambassador to Uzbekistan and prior to that a longtime career diplomat in the UK Foreign Office who worked across Africa, Eastern Europe, and Central Asia — the British government itself has advanced capabilities in Novichok:

“The ‘novochok’ group of nerve agents — a very loose term simply for a collection of new nerve agents the Soviet Union were developing fifty years ago — will almost certainly have been analysed and reproduced by Porton Down. That is entirely what Porton Down is there for. It used to make chemical and biological weapons as weapons, and today it still does make them in small quantities in order to research defences and antidotes. After the fall of the Soviet Union Russian chemists made a lot of information available on these nerve agents. And one country which has always manufactured very similar persistent nerve agents is Israel.”

But the British government doesn’t want to investigate Porton Down, not even to rule out the possibility that it may have ‘lost control’ of some of its Novichok stockpiles.

Porton Down: proudly experimenting with nerve gas on the British public from the 1950s to 1989

Porton Down, Salisbury, the UK Ministry of Defence’s Defence Science and Technology Laboratory.

Perhaps the government is worried about what it might actually discover if it asks too many questions about Porton Down itself.

The facility has a somewhat chequered history in relation to the abuse of chemical and biological weapons programmes that has been largely forgotten. This history illustrates that the British government has not at all been averse to using chemical and biological weapons on its own population, just to see what happens.

Two years ago, the Independent reported on new historical research which found that during the Cold War, the British government “used the general public as unwitting biological and chemical warfare guinea pigs on a much greater scale than previously thought.”

Over 750 secret operations had been carried out on “hundreds of thousands of ordinary Britons” involving “biological and chemical warfare attacks launched from aircraft, ships and road vehicles.”

“British military aircraft dropped thousands of kilos of a chemical of ‘largely unknown toxic potential’ on British civilian populations in and around Salisbury in Wiltshire, Cardington in Bedfordshire and Norwich in Norfolk… Substantial quantities were also dispersed across parts of the English Channel and the North Sea. It’s not known the extent to which coastal towns in England and France were affected… commuters on the London underground were also used as guinea pigs on a substantially larger scale than previously thought. The new research has discovered that a hitherto unknown biological warfare field trial was carried out in the capital’s tube system in May 1964. The secret operation — carried out by scientists from the government’s chemical and biological warfare research centre at Porton Down, Wiltshire — involved the release of large quantities of bacteria called Bacillus globigii…”

The new research also shows that many of the British scientists involved “had grave misgivings about the field trials… some had long felt that it was not politically advisable to conduct large-scale trials in Britain with live bacterial agents.” Such reservations did not stop the government from authorising these dangerous experiments.

Porton Down also conducted extensive nerve agent tests on British soldiers around this time.

Less well-known, though, is the fact that members of the British armed forces “were experimented on with Sarin, the deadly nerve gas, as late as 1983 at the Government’s defence research centre at Porton Down,” according to Ministry of Defence documents obtained by The Telegraph. Operation Antler, as the police investigation into the experiments was called, found that the nerve agent trials had gone on as late as 1989.

A secret British intelligence unit is actively arranging ‘honey trap’ propaganda operations to incriminate ‘adversaries’

There are strong reasons, then, not to fall slavishly in line with the British government’s rush to judgement on Russia.

But this is particularly the case given what we now know about British intelligence service’s disinformation intent and capabilities when dealing with “adversaries.”

National Security Agency documents leaked by whistleblower Edward Snowden revealed that a secret British intelligence unit, Joint Threat Research and Intelligence Group (JTRIG), uses a range of “dirty tricks” against “nations, hackers, terror groups, suspected criminals and arms dealers that include releasing computer viruses, spying on journalists and diplomats, jamming phones and computers, and using sex to lure targets into ‘honey traps,’” according to a NBC News investigation.

Although much of the focus of these operations is online, they also include the goal of “having an impact in the real world” and “using online techniques to make something happen in the real or online world.” The modus operandi is to “destroy, deny, degrade [and] disrupt” enemies by “discrediting” them and planting misinformation designed to look like actions were performed by them.

Propaganda campaigns can use deception, mass messaging and “pushing stories” via Twitter, Flickr, Facebook and YouTube. One section of the document explains that such influence operations can involve direct efforts to manipulate people’s behaviour into compromising situations:

“Honey trap; a great option. Very successful when it works.

– Get someone to go somewhere on the internet, or a physical location to be met by a ‘friendly face’.

– JTRIG has the ability to ‘shape’ the environment on occasions.”

Such capabilities and operations of deception at the heart of the British state raise perfectly reasonable questions about whether the UK’s intelligence services are deliberately seeking to pin the blame on Russia for geopolitical reasons — or perhaps, even, to distract from scrutiny of allies who might be legitimate suspects.

According to former British diplomat Craig Murray, for instance, it is more reasonable to cast the net of suspicion onto Israel for many of the same reasons cited by the British government:

“Israel has the nerve agents. Israel has Mossad which is extremely skilled at foreign assassinations. Theresa May claimed Russian propensity to assassinate abroad as a specific reason to believe Russia did it. Well Mossad has an even greater propensity to assassinate abroad. And while I am struggling to see a Russian motive for damaging its own international reputation so grieviously, Israel has a clear motivation for damaging the Russian reputation so grieviously. Russian action in Syria has undermined the Israeli position in Syria and Lebanon in a fundamental way, and Israel has every motive for damaging Russia’s international position by an attack aiming to leave the blame on Russia.”

Murray further points out that it is unlikely the Russians “waited eight years to do this, they could have waited until after their World Cup.” Similarly, it makes little sense to suddenly assassinate a “swapped spy” who had already served his time and been living out in the open for years in London.

Murray is no blind Russiaphile, and so his critical analysis cannot be dismissed on grounds of partisanship. He describes himself as “someone who believes that agents of the Russian state did assassinate Litvinenko, and that the Russian security services carried out at least some of the apartment bombings that provided the pretext for the brutal assault on Chechnya. I believe the Russian occupation of Crimea and parts of Georgia is illegal.”

But he cautions that, given the severe lack of credible evidence on this case, he is “alarmed by the security, spying and armaments industries’ frenetic efforts to stoke Russophobia and heat up the new cold war.”

Indeed, INSURGE just reported on an extensive US Army study published last year which not only stated quite unequivocally that NATO expansionism is the main driver of Russian belligerence, but that NATO’s main interest has always been to rollback Russia’s regional influence so that the West can dominate Central Asian natural resources and oil pipeline routes.

The document recommended that in 2018, the US should consider pursuing a concerted covert “information” campaign to undermine Putin.

Is this what we are seeing play out right now as Theresa May rushes to punish Putin?

This leaves us with the following. The actual history of Novichok shows that out of the countries discussed here, Russia is the only state to have been certified by the OPCW as having destroyed its chemical weapons programme, including its nerve agent capabilities. The OPCW found no evidence to indicate that Russia retains an active Novichok capability. The same is not the case for the US, Britain and Israel.

There is no legitimate reason for the British authorities to rule out that any of these states could have at the very least ‘lost control’ of their nerve agent stockpiles. The fact that the government chose, instead, to shut down all avenues of inquiry other than to claim falsely that the “only possibility” is for all roads to lead to Russia, demonstrates that we are almost certainly in the midst of a concerted state propaganda operation.

It may turn out that Russia did indeed carry out the Novichok attack. But at this time, the British state has no real basis to presume this. Which implies that the state has already decided that it wants to manufacture a path to heightened hostilities with Russia, regardless of the evidence. And that does not bode well.

via RSS http://ift.tt/2FFiEuL Tyler Durden

Forget Disneyland; for immigrants, Finland is the new ‘happiest place on earth’…

As the latest World Happiness Report shows, in a country in which the domestic born population is happy, the same can usually be said for its foreign born residents.

As such, Statista’s Martin Armstrong notes that Finland is home to the happiest people in the world – domestic and foreign born.

You will find more infographics at Statista

As our chart shows though, there are, to some extent, exceptions.

In Mexico for example, the immigrant population ranks tenth in the world for happiness, whereas when asking those born in the country, it slips to 24th place.

The opposite can be observed in Switzerland and the Netherlands where immigrant happiness ranks a good few places below that of the locals.

via RSS http://ift.tt/2tVt7ga Tyler Durden

Authored by Douglas Murray via The Gatestone Institute,

Is it possible that mainstream politicians and the mainstream media are finally recognising what the European public can see with their own eyes?

Two recent occurrences suggest that this might be so.

The first is a concession by German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who almost half a year after her party’s embarrassment in national elections has finally managed to put together a coalition government. Last September saw not only Merkel’s party and her erstwhile coalition partners suffer a historic dent in their vote-share, but also saw the entry to Parliament of the five-year old anti-immigration AfD (Alternative for Germany) party, which is now so large that it constitutes the country’s official opposition. If German voters meant to send a message, it could hardly have been clearer.

Perhaps it was even listened to. On Monday February 26, Merkel gave an interview to the German broadcaster N-TV. In it she finally admitted that there are “no-go areas” in her country: “that is, areas where nobody dares to go.” She continued: “There are such areas and one has to call them by their name and do something about them.” The Chancellor claimed that she favoured a “zero tolerance” attitude towards such places but did not identify where they were. Two days later, her spokesman, Steffen Seibert stressed that “the Chancellor’s words speak for themselves.”

Germany’s Chancellor, Angela Merkel. (Photo by Carsten Koall/Getty Images)

 

Although the Chancellor chose to use few words, that she said these things at all is significant. For years, German officials, like their political counterparts across the continent, have furiously denied that there are any areas of their countries to which the rule of law does not extend. Denials have also issued forth from officials in, among other countries, Sweden and France. In January 2015, Paris’s Mayor Anne Hidalgo threatened to sue Fox News after the station said there were no-go zones in her city. Hidalgo claimed at the time in an interview on CNN that “the honour of Paris” and the “image of Paris” had been harmed. It was a typically extraordinary claim, which ignored that if the “image of Paris” had taken any battering around that time, it might have been due to the massacre of 12 journalists, cartoonists and policemen at the offices of the satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo, and the slaughter of four people in a kosher supermarket two days later. So concessions like Merkel’s — as opposed to cover-ups like Hidalgo’s — are to be applauded, slightly, when they occur.

Just a week later, another strange milestone was reached. The front page of the New York Times on March 6 carried a story — also graced with the page’s only pictures — which nobody could have expected the paper to run. Under the heading “Old weapons rattle Sweden,” the paper recorded the recent death of a 63-year old man in the Stockholm suburb of Varby Gard. As the paper records, Daniel Cuevas Zuniga had only recently finished a night-shift as an aide for disabled adults, and was cycling home with his wife, when, spotting a spherical object on the floor he stopped and reached out. It was an M-75 hand grenade; its explosive charge and 3000 steel metal balls instantly killed Mr Zuniga and blew his wife off her bicycle.

As the paper conceded, this is not a one-off event but part of an upsurge in violence — particularly involving hand-grenades — caused by the influx of foreign gangs and foreign weapons (largely from the Balkan wars of the 1990s) into the Scandinavian country. The paper quoted a Lebanese asylum-seeker who had previously been a commando in a Lebanese militia. Paulus Borisho, in his kebab shop, heard the blast that killed Zuniga. As the paper recorded:

“That a grenade should be found on the sidewalk outside a kebab shop, a few steps from an elementary school, was difficult for him to take in.

“Now when I think of the future, I am afraid” he said. “I am afraid for Europe”.

As well he might be. The paper even had the decency to quote friends of the late Mr Zuniga, who reported that he had complained about recent “changes in Varby Gard” and had been “frustrated that the police did not have better control.” Again: as well he might.

Of course, the upsurge in gang violence, and specifically grenade violence, in Sweden has been covered in other media outlets in recent years. These have pointed out the Swedish police’s often ridiculous ways of addressing this problem. For instance, that Swedish police chief Linda Staaf recently tried to dissuade gangs from using hand-grenades in Sweden by pointing out that grenade-throwing is dangerous because the person who pulls out the pin could “expose themselves to a huge risk.” Papers like the New York Times have taken little interest in such problems — problems which have got so bad that Prime Minister Stefan Löfven even threatened to send the army into certain Swedish suburbs.

Instead, newspapers like the New York Times have tended in recent years towards the same denialism as Angela Merkel about the problems which mass immigration from the developing world is causing in Europe. They have tended to praise the “courage” of suspending normal border controls while covering over or ignoring the terrible consequences of importing millions of people whose identities are unknown. And of course, like Mayor Hidalgo in Paris, they have tended to shoot the messengers more than report the news, dismissing any such stories as “fake news”, “alt-right” or “far right” propaganda.

Just last year, when Donald Trump famously mentioned “what happened last night in Sweden”, the mainstream media knew what he was referring to. They knew that he was loosely referencing a report that he had seen on Fox news the night before about the increasingly bad situation in that country. The media, however, chose not to address that problem. Instead they chose — in the main — to laugh at the President and ridicule the idea that there were any troubles in the Scandinavian paradise.

Back then the New York Times headlined that President Trump’s comments were “baffling”, while much of the rest of the media simply pretended that Sweden was a land of infinite peace and Ikea which had been sorely slandered by the President.

The surprise that within days of each other, both Chancellor Merkel and the New York Times have become willing to admit facts which they and their apologists have long pretended to be imaginary could be progress of a kind. It may not, however, be a cause for optimism. Rather than being a demonstration that things are getting better, that they are now admitting what is visible to the eyes of ordinary Europeans may be an admission that things have got so bad — and are so well-known — that even the Gray Lady and Mutti Merkel are no longer able to ignore them.

If so, one thought must surely follow: imagine what might have been solved if the denials had never even begun?

via RSS http://ift.tt/2FFt7GJ Tyler Durden