GERMANY - Deutsche Bank shares have plunged by up to eight per cent, after it emerged the US demanded the German lender pay a whopping $14 billion (£10.5 billion) to settle a scandal related to the financial crisis. The Department of Justice has asked the banking giant for the payout after an investigation into its selling of mortgage-backed securities.
GERMANY - Angela Merkel has been warned she faces civil war in Germany because of the ongoing migrant crisis. Frauke Petry said the German government needs to act quickly to manage the new arrivals. The chairwoman of the populist right-wing party Alternative fur Deutschland (AfD) warned the crisis could escalate branding the current situation “unacceptable”.
ITALY - Italy has been in a crisis for at least eight months, though mainstream media did not recognize it until July. This crisis has nothing to do with Brexit, although opponents of Brexit will claim it does. Even if Britain had voted to stay in the EU, the Italian crisis would still have been gathering speed.
USA - The US military is getting an unwelcome reputation: a pushover. An escalating series of confrontations on the seas and in the skies around the world is creating the perception that the US is the child who's bullied in school because he doesn't fight back.
EUROPE - An Islam expert has warned of a civil war across Europe as more young Muslims are being increasingly radicalised. Professor Gilles Kepel, from the Sciences Po in Paris, claims a growing number of Muslims with poor job prospects are forming a “Jihad Generation” to continue to commit acts of terror across Europe.
USA - Maverick investor Warren Buffett lost a staggering £1 billion overnight this week after stocks in Wells Fargo tumbled. The massive loss was triggered by revelations bank employees were putting customers into fake accounts to meet sales targets. It led to a $190 million settlement with regulators – and wiped £1 billion from Buffett’s massive £50 billion fortune. Bloomberg reported it fell 2 percent, giving Buffett the dubious honour of dropping more than anyone else on Bloomberg’s Billionaires’ Index. Meanwhile, US prosecutors have begun an investigation related to sales practices at Wells Fargo, a person close to the matter claims. As part of last week’s settlement, Wells Fargo agreed to pay $185 million in penalties and $5 million to customers. Wells Fargo also said that it had fired 5,300 employees over the sales conduct. The bank neither admitted nor denied the allegations as part of the settlement.
UNITED NATIONS - A little more than four months from now Barack Obama’s time in the White House is scheduled to end, and the Palestinians know that their best chance of getting a UN Security Council resolution addressing their conflict with Israel is rapidly slipping away. Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton are both greatly wooing the Jewish vote, and they both are making very strong pro-Israel statements these days.
UNITED NATIONS - Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said Wednesday he has never seen tensions on the Korean peninsula as high as they are today and he called on the Security Council to take urgent action to prevent "provocative actions" by North Korea.
PHILIPPINES - The Philippines will pursue “independent” foreign and military policies separate from US interests in the region, the country’s president said, announcing that in order to avoid any confrontations with China he would halt joint Filipino navy patrols with the US.
USA - Just like during the last economic crisis, homeless encampments are popping up all over the nation as poverty grows at a very alarming rate. According to the Department of Housing and Urban Development, more than half a million people are homeless in America right now, but that figure is increasing by the day.
USA - A US cement maker will pay $42,500 to a Seventh-day Adventist worker whom it fired for declining to work on the Sabbath, the US government said. Greenville Ready Mixed Concrete, a company based in North Carolina, agreed to compensate truck driver Michael Cole and to take steps to prevent future religious discrimination with its settlement in a lawsuit filed by the government’s Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. “We are pleased with this settlement,” said Lynette A Barnes, regional attorney for the agency's Charlotte District Office. “No one should ever be forced to choose between his religion and his job.”
USA - Churches in the People’s Republic of Massachusetts have grave concerns about a new anti-discrimination law that could force congregations to accommodate the transgender community – under the threat of fines and jail time.
COLUMBIA - A powerful earthquake measuring 5.9 magnitude has struck northwest Colombia, the US Geological Survey reports. The epicenter of the quake was located some 129 km (about 66 miles) north northwest of the country’s second largest city, Medellin, at a depth of 72 km (45 miles). There were no immediate reports of damage or casualties. Colombia is located in a subduction zone, meaning earthquakes occur inland, where large masses of land are interacting between each other.
USA - As millions of Americans struggle to decide whether to elect a volatile narcissist or a calculated warmongering criminal as their next leader, one Minnesota town is doing politics right — they just re-elected a dog to his third term as mayor.
GERMANY - Following up on Deutsche Bank as Ground Zero, I'd like to focus on the deteriorating credit metrics at Germany's largest bank. To be absolutely honest, an educated consumer is at odds with the bank's other stakeholders in this situation.