Today's Headlines

Bloomberg:

• Russian Buildup Makes Removing Syria’s Assad Tougher, Obama Says. Russia’s deepening military involvement in Syria will make it harder to dislodge Bashar al-Assad from power and find a political solution to the war raging there, President Barack Obama said. Obama confirmed reports that Russia has sent additional personnel and equipment to aid Assad’s forces, a tactic that the president said was doomed to failure. “The strategy they’re pursuing now, doubling down on Assad, I think is a big mistake,” Obama said Friday in remarks to military personnel at Fort Meade, Maryland.  

• Russia Still Poses Threat to Ukraine, U.S. Official Nuland Says. Sanctions against Russia will stay in place until truce accords are fully implemented in Ukraine as “outside aggression is still a great threat to this country,” U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland said in Kiev. Russia and “its proxies” in Ukraine’s two easternmost regions must stick to peace accords signed in Minsk, Belarus, after all-night talks between German, French, Russian and Ukrainian leaders, Nuland told the Yalta European Strategy conference Saturday. She called on pro-Russian insurgents in Ukraine’s Donetsk and Luhansk regions to hold local elections next month under Ukrainian laws, monitored by the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe.

• EU Weighs Transaction Tax as France Pushes for Wider Base. European Union efforts to build a financial-transactions tax among 11 nations pressed on in a bid to break a deadlock over what to tax and at what rate. “Important advances were made” at a meeting among participating nations on Saturday in Luxembourg, French Finance Minister Michel Sapin told reporters. He said France continues to push for a wide base and a low rate for the trading levies. Sapin said ministers agreed to tax gross trades rather than net transactions, which would include high frequency trading. He said the only derivatives exceptions would be those related to sovereign debt sales, and that the tax should be designed so that firms can’t evade levies by relocating. “We’ve agreed on certain principles and we’ll be able to make more important decisions in October,” Sapin said. “That doesn’t mean we’ve decided all the details or that the financial transaction tax will start in October, but a certain threshold has been passed.

 Wall Street Journal: 

• Obama Methodically Wooed Democrats to Back Iran Nuclear Deal. Realizing no GOP support was forthcoming, White House set up an ‘anti-war’ room to pressure fellow Democrats, worked with Pelosi and outside groups. Six days after reaching the nuclear deal with Iran, the White House in July set up what aides dubbed an “anti-war room” in the basement of the West Wing. The windowless hub became the seat of the administration’s aggressive campaign to push back against critics of the deal. Whiteboards listed lawmakers’ positions. Computer screens logged onto Twitter to monitor commentary from opponents, and a small television helped staffers keep tabs on the cable-news debate. For weeks, the operation buzzed with senior White...

• The Roots of the Migration Crisis. The Syrian refugee disaster is a result of the Middle East’s failure to grapple with modernity and Europe’s failure to defend its ideals.

• California’s Climate Change Revolt. Democrats reject green schemes that raise energy costs for the non-rich. The environmental lobby has tried to turn climate change into a social justice issue even though its anticarbon policies disproportionately harm the poor. Honest Democrats are starting to admit this, as we saw in this week’s stunning revolt in the California legislature.

MarketWatch.com:

• In Europe, migrant crisis builds. (pic)

Fox News: 

• Report: Iran finds 'unexpectedly high' uranium reserve after Dems seal nuke deal for Obama. (video) Iran has reportedly found an unexpectedly high reserve of uranium, following assessments that the country is running low on the nuclear raw material and just days after President Obama essentially secured an international nuclear deal with the country's leaders. The discovery was reported first by Reuters and based on comments made by Iranian nuclear chief Ali Akbar Salehi to the state news agency IRNA. "I cannot announce (the level of) Iran's uranium mine reserves," Salehi was quoted as saying. "The important thing is that before aerial prospecting for uranium ores we were not too optimistic, but the new discoveries have made us confident about our reserves."

• Exclusive photos appear to show grisly effect of ISIS’ mustard gas attacks on Kurds. (video) Kurdish forces battling ISIS in Iraq are suffering severe health effects and pleading with the international community for help after being attacked with chemical weapons including mustard gas, according to a western military expert embedded with them who provided gruesome photos backing the charges.

CNBC:

• Hundreds of thousands of supporters gather for Catalan independence rally. Catalonia's independence movement gathered for another show of strength on Friday with a mass rally in support of a break with Spain that drew hundreds of thousands of supporters in the regional capital Barcelona.

Zero Hedge:

• Why Risk Parity Funds Are Unprepared For A Rate HIke.

• Is Yellen About To Shock Everyone: Goldman Says The "Fed Should Think About Easing". (graph)

• Chronicling History's Greatest Financial Bubble.

• Ex-NYSE Chief Admits "It's Not A Fair Market... It's Bad For The Country".

• A Recipe For The Mother Of All Short Squeezes? (graph)

• The 20-Year Stock Bubble - Its Origin In Wholesale Money. (graph)

• To Hike Or Not To Hike (Fed, Economists, & Market Divided).

• Visualizing China's Mind-Boggling Consumption Of The World's Raw Materials.

• Bank Of Japan Buying Power Runs Dry: "If They Don't Increase Now, It's Going To Be A Shock!" (graph)

• Interbank Credit Risk Is Rising Ominously Again In America. (graph)

• Weekend Reading: Rooting For The Bull? (graph)

• Stocks & Bond Yields Surge'n'Purge Thanks To "Asian Intervention Week". (graph)

• From Miracle To Cataclysm: Why The Commodity Bust Will Last For Years. (graph)

• Mount(ing) Denial. (cartoon)

Business Insider:

• Barron's devastating cover story on Alibaba(BABA) predicts the stock will tank 50%, and that's not even the worst of it. However, the bulk of Laing's screed raises red flags about corporate governance, conflicts of interest, counterfeit goods, and various other questionable business practices.

• This might be the most brutal poll yet for Hillary Clinton.

• These charts have Jeff Gundlach pleading, 'DAMMIT, JANET! DON'T RAISE RATES!'

• 'The worst storm in retail history' is heading straight for Walmart(WMT), Kroger(KR), and Whole Foods(WFM).

• 20 haunting photos from the September 11 attacks that Americans will always remember. (pics)

• Bernie Sanders is closing in on Hillary Clinton.

• Don't get comfortable!

• The 'next subprime' is getting ready to blow. (graph)

Financial Times:

• US rate uncertainty drives flight from emerging markets. Investors have pulled money from emerging market bond funds for the seventh consecutive week, in the latest sign of shifting sentiment ahead of next week’s Federal Reserve decision on US interest rates. The moves come as investors consider the potential for two changes to the world economy: a first US interest rate rise in nine years, and a significant moderation in Chinese demand for commodities for the first time in a decade.