GREECE - Third consecutive double-digit share price slump on Wednesday as depositors pull billions out of accounts and support from ECB is questioned. Greece’s banks have lost almost 40 percent of their value in the three days since Syriza ascended to power in Sunday's election as the dual threats of a bank run and the loss of support from the European Central Bank threaten a liquidity squeeze. The FTSE/Athex Bank Index, a weighted index of Greek bank shares, fell to a new all-time low on Wednesday. They have now lost more than half their value since early December, when a general election was triggered.
GREECE - Debts that have to be repaid tomorrow are far more burdensome than debts that don’t need to be repaid for years. Saying you won’t reduce Greece’s debts but are prepared to increase the repayment period is sophistry; they’re the same thing. If you extend the loan period then you are reducing Greece’s debts. (The rates of interest paid by Greece complicates the picture but they are now so low that the principle still holds.)
SAUDI ARABIA - Saudi Aramco chief says the kingdom is now pumping 9.8 million barrels per day in a bid to win an oil price war with US shale frackers. Saudi Arabia has secretly increased its oil production to 9.8 million barrels per day (bpd), its highest level of output since last October, in a push to win back market share in its oil price war with US shale drillers.
ISRAEL - The Katyusha rockets that were fired at the Golan Heights from Syria on Tuesday apparently weren’t stray fire from a battle between the Assad regime and its opponents, but rather were launched deliberately, Israeli defense officials believe. According to defense establishment assessments, the rockets were a sign that Hezbollah, along with Iran and Syria, hasn’t forgotten the January 18 assassination of an Iranian general and six Hezbollah operatives, which the organization attributes to Israel.
USA - Failing to implement a stronger US-NATO force presence in the Baltic States could ultimately result in the collapse of the collective security alliance, US Senator John McCain told Sputnik on Wednesday. “If they [the Russians] move into the Baltics… and there is no tripwire there, I doubt if there would be a reaction. And it would be the end of NATO,” the Senate Armed Services Chairman told Sputnik, following a hearing on US national security challenges.
AFGHANISTAN - It is the open secret no one wants to talk about, the unwelcome truth that most prefer to hide. In Afghanistan, one of the richest sources of Taliban funding is the foreign assistance coming into the country. Virtually every major project includes a healthy cut for the insurgents. Call it protection money, call it extortion, or, as the Taliban themselves prefer to term it, “spoils of war,” the fact remains that international donors, primarily the United States, are to a large extent financing their own enemy.
ISRAEL - Israel is exploiting its upcoming elections in order to Judaise Jerusalem's al Aqsa mosque, said the Islamic-Christian Commission in Support of Jerusalem and the Holy Sites. Dr Hanna Issa, secretary-general of the Commission, issued a statement noting that all Israeli Zionist parties, even those of the so-called left, support attacks against al Aqsa mosque and a change of the status quo.
USA - The world's biggest central bank could raise interest rates sooner than anticipated as steady job growth and improved inflation expectations could lead to a tightening of monetary policy by the middle of the year. In its latest statement, the Federal Open Markets Committee said the US economy was growing at a "solid pace" with the latest data suggesting "strong job gains and a lower unemployment rate".
GREECE - It's never good when neo-Nazis who can't even campaign because their leaders are in jail for murdering a political opponent still manage to come in third in your elections. That's what happened in Greece, though, after its mainstream parties discredited themselves by presiding over so much austerity that voters are willing to turn to quite literally anyone who promises to end it.
EUROPE - Last year, a “political earthquake’’ in the European Parliament elections ended with extremist parties triumphant in Germany, Denmark, France and the United Kingdom. On Sunday, Syriza, a far-left party won elections in Greece, becoming the first anti-austerity party to take power in a eurozone country. And it might not be the last. Podemos, another new, anti-establishment and left-wing party is ahead in the polls to win Spanish elections this year. Is this the start of the fragmentation of Europe and the rise of national assertiveness that some analysts fear? Given Europe’s history, this is troubling.
EUROPE - For all the tears of joy, not least among Syriza’s sympathisers in London’s liberal circles, the party’s victory has left Europe in an awful position. Greece’s new Prime Minister, hard-left firebrand Alexis Tsipras — a former member of the Young Communists — won victory by pledging to rip up his country’s austerity agreements with the EU and International Monetary Fund. That has put him on a collision course with Europe’s most powerful politician and austerity’s most committed champion, the German Chancellor Angela Merkel. It is no exaggeration to say that Mrs Merkel now faces a historic choice.
GREECE - Although it is tempting to feel sympathy for the Greeks, it is not Mrs Merkel’s fault they are in this mess. It is their own. Reading the tear-stained paeans to Syriza’s victory in yesterday’s Guardian, I was amused to see that not one of them mentioned the reason the Greeks are in this predicament — their own shameful profligacy, corruption and mismanagement.
GREECE - This weekend, Greek voters delivered an understandable howl of rage against the austerity imposed on them by the guardians of the euro, which has left most of their young people without jobs. True, few who backed the victorious far-Left Syriza party can seriously believe that its bonkers promises of a massive public spending binge will solve any of the bankrupt country’s problems. But the result (and how the EU’s elite winces at democracy!) has smashed the euro ball back into Germany’s court.
JERUSALEM, ISRAEL - Along with canceling a tax fund transfer, Israel is working on an appropriate set of responses to the Palestinian Authority joining the International Criminal Court and laying the foundation for war crimes charges against Israel. A thoroughly appropriate response would be revoking the PA’s Wakf authority over the Temple Mount. The idea of allowing exclusive Muslim control over Judaism’s holiest site is, to say the least, problematic. PA President Mahmoud Abbas controls the grand muftiship of Jerusalem; the grand mufti controls the Wakf and the Wakf controls the Temple Mount. The idea of giving the PA authority over Israel’s most important national and historical treasure is ludicrous.
ISRAEL - After weeks of tension and public calls for former MK Dr Michael Ben-Ari's Otzma Yehudit and MK Eli Yishai's Yachad - Ha'am Itanu to run on a technical bloc joint list, negotiations have fallen through after Yishai's party made surprising last minute demands on Ben-Ari. Yishai and his associates MK Yoni Chetboun and Rabbi Moshe Hager demanded that Otzma Yehudit members obligate themselves, and announce to the media, that they will permanently not ascend to the Temple Mount, the holiest site in Judaism. Ben-Ari has made clear that he would not join any coalition unless firm ideological red lines were set, such as not releasing terrorists, not freezing construction, not holding negotiations with the Palestinian Authority (PA), and not letting Hamas survive another operation - all of which the outgoing coalition did.