USA - Holders of US Treasuries to lose $1 trillion if yields across the maturity spectrum rise 3 percentage points, according to the Bank of International Settlement (BIS), umbrella organization for the world’s largest central banks.
GERMANY - Overzealous data collectors in the US and Great Britain have no right to investigate German citizens. The German government must protect people from unauthorized access by foreign intelligence agencies, and it must act now. This is a matter of national security.
CHINA - The US has gone from ‘model of human rights’ to manipulator of internet rights, the mouthpiece of the Chinese Communist Party wrote. China has struck back at the US over its allegations that Beijing allowed NSA leaker Edward Snowden to leave Hong Kong.
RUSSIA - Information that NSA leaker Edward Snowden is exposing can lead to trials against those involved in war crimes in Afghanistan or Iraq or in money laundering and that is why “the West is so afraid,” investigative journalist Tony Gosling told RT. The 29-year-old whistleblower – who was charged with espionage in the US for revealing secret surveillance programs - arrived in Moscow from Hong Kong on Sunday. Snowden is on his way to a third country via Russia. Snowden is actually exposing criminals and the criminals are going for him now. I’m afraid that is the case.
USA - The US has long emphasized the importance it gives to the human rights of the citizens of the nations it is dealing with. Now, countries aiding Edward Snowden as he tries to evade US justice can turn the tables on the US.
GERMANY - Berlin's key think tank for military policy has organized a strategy conference for today and tomorrow, with leading organs of German mass media participating. Talks by Germany's defense, foreign and finance ministers are on the agenda of this conference organized by the Federal College for Security Studies (BAKS).
ISRAEL - PA [Palestinian Authority] Chairman Abbas announced Monday that he is willing to accept Secretary John Kerry's request he meet PM Netanyahu and restart peace negotiations, stalled since 2010. Abbas said [Israeli] Minister Bennett's description of the two-state solution as 'unrealistic' was 'dangerous'.
UK - Britain's 10-year borrowing costs touched their highest levels in almost two years on Monday, as last week's signal from the Federal Reserve that it is ready to rein in stimulus measures continued to trouble markets.
VATICAN/UKRAINE - The president of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity, Cardinal Kurt Koch, visited Ukraine from June 5 to 12, 2013. Upon his arrival the curia official was welcomed at Borispol Airport by the primate of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church (UGCC), His Beatitude Sviatoslav (Shevchuk), and by Archbishop Thomas Edward Gullickson, apostolic nuncio for Ukraine.
EGYPT - The spokesman of the Egyptian armed forces clarified Saturday circulating news of 400 US troops about to be deployed to Egypt. "The 400 US soldiers coming to Egypt as mentioned in the media are part of the periodical renewal routine for the US faction of the 13-state multinational force deployed in Sinai since the peace treaty.
SWITZERLAND - When a month ago the Central Banks' Central Bank, aka the Bank of International Settlements (or BIS) in Basel where the MIT central-planning braintrust meets every few months to decide the fate of the world, warned that the Fed-induced collateral shortage is distorting the markets, few paid attention.
USA - Regular food shortages in Sub-Saharan Africa; shifting rain patterns in South Asia leaving some parts under water and others without enough water for power generation, irrigation, or drinking; degradation and loss of reefs in South East Asia resulting in reduced fish stocks and coastal communities and cities more vulnerable to increasingly violent storms; these are but a few of the likely impacts of a possible global temperature rise of 2 degrees Celsius in the next few decades that threatens to trap millions of people in poverty, according to a new scientific report released today by the World Bank Group.
UK - Mark Carney was not overstating things when he told the Canadian media, on being named Bank of England Governor last November, that he was moving to “where the challenges are greatest”. The UK is not just struggling to recover from the most prolonged downturn in more than 100 years; the authorities have already thrown the kitchen sink at the problem.
UK - The imminent spending review will inspire the usual bleating chorus about “cuts”, but the truth is that austerity is a mirage: public spending is growing under George Osborne.
RIYADH, SAUDI ARABIA - Saudi Arabia is switching its weekend to begin on Friday to align its banking and business days with most other nations in the region.