Bloomberg:
- NATO Maps Eastern Defense Plan, With European Forces in Lead. NATO will set up military headquarters and
command centers stretching from the Baltic to Black seas to
operate a new rapid-reaction force to defend eastern Europe
against the increasingly assertive Russia. Allied defense ministers fleshed out plans for a 5,000-man
force that could start deploying within 48 hours and ultimately
put 30,000 troops in the field, to be run by a rotating cast of
European militaries. The 28 allied countries will “ensure that we have the
right forces in the right place at the right time,” North
Atlantic Treaty Organization Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg
said Thursday after the meeting in Brussels. “We are taking
these steps in response to our changed security environment.”
- Greek Bank Bonds Tumble After ECB Restricts Funding Windown. Bonds of Greek banks tumbled after the
European Central Bank said it would restrict their access to
funding, raising financing costs and limiting the availability
of liquidity. National Bank of Greece SA and Piraeus Bank SA were the
biggest decliners in Bank of America Merrill Lynch’s Euro
Financial High Yield index, sliding as much as 6 cents on the
euro. The price of credit-default swaps on Greek sovereign debt
signaled a 71 percent probability of default within five years. “A very large warning shot has been fired across the Greek
bows by the ECB,” said Gary Jenkins, chief credit strategist at
London-based L&G Capital. “Whilst the most likely outcome is
for some kind of compromise, there still remains the possibility
that Greece could end up defaulting and exiting the euro zone
almost by accident as much as design.”
- Anthem Attack Investigators See Signs of Chinese Hackers. Investigators of Anthem Inc.’s data breach
are pursuing evidence that points to Chinese state-sponsored
hackers who are stealing personal information from health-care
companies for purposes other than pure profit, according to
three people familiar with the probe. The breach, which exposed Social Security numbers and other
sensitive details of 80 million customers, is one of the biggest
thefts of medical-related customer data in U.S. history. China
has said in the past that it doesn’t conduct espionage through
hacking.
- Ukraine Lets Hryvnia Dive as IMF-Backed Move Boosts Bailout Case. Ukraine loosened its grip on the hryvnia
currency, allowing it to slump by a third in a move backed by
the International Monetary Fund amid talks for a new bailout. The hryvnia retreated 33 percent to a record 25 per dollar
at 6:20 p.m. in Kiev. Ukraine’s dollar-denominated bonds due in
July 2017 advanced to a five-day high of 53.366 cents on the
dollar, reducing the yield to 41.13 percent.
- Russian Inflation at Fastest Since 2008 After Currency Rout. Russian inflation topped forecasts by
economists, accelerating to the fastest pace in almost seven
years as the country’s worst currency crisis since 1998 ignited
price growth. Consumer prices rose 15 percent in January from a year
earlier, compared with 11.4 percent in December, the Federal
Statistics Service in Moscow said today in an e-mailed
statement. That exceeded the median estimate of 15 economists in
a Bloomberg survey for 13.5 percent. Prices jumped 3.9 percent
from the previous month.
- Longtime Sberbank Champion Says Sell as Crisis Escalates. After more than five years of advising
clients to buy OAO Sberbank, Renaissance Capital is turning
bearish on Russia’s biggest lender, saying a spiraling economic
crisis will cut margins and increase risks.
- Boko Haram’s Widening Raids Entangle Regional Nations in War. The Nigerian militant group Boko Haram’s
latest attack in neighboring Cameroon killed as many as 81
people and deepened the engagement of armies from the region to
halt the Islamists’ drive to establish a self-styled caliphate. Gunmen attacked the northern Cameroonian town of Fotokol
early Wednesday, just a day after Chadian forces operating in
Nigerian territory drove militants out of the border town of
Gamboru, about 3 kilometers (1.8 miles) away. Local resident
Tijjani Abba Kuli said by phone Thursday from Fotokol that the
militants killed at least 81 people.
- Indonesia’s Economy Shrank Last Quarter on Commodities Slump. Indonesia’s economy shrank last quarter from
the previous three months, capping the weakest year since at
least the global financial crisis, on falling commodity prices
and cooling investment. Southeast Asia’s biggest economy shrank 2.06 percent last
quarter from the previous three months, when it expanded a
revised 3.16 percent, the statistics bureau said in Jakarta on
Thursday. It grew 5.02 percent in 2014, from a revised 5.58
percent pace the previous year.
- Denmark Cuts Key Deposit Rate to Minus 0.75% to Save Peg. Denmark’s central bank cut its benchmark
rate for a fourth time this year as it steps up efforts to fight
back capital flows that threaten to strengthen the krone beyond
the confines of its euro peg. The central bank lowered the deposit rate to minus 0.75
percent from minus 0.5 percent, it said today. It left its
lending rate at 0.05 percent.
- Stocks in Europe closed at their highest level in more than seven years. Greek shares fell amid concern
over talks between the nation’s government and European leaders.
The Stoxx Europe 600 Index added 0.1 percent to 372.51 at
the close of trading, erasing intraday losses of as much as 0.6
percent as energy shares advanced.
- Tenacious Oil Bulls Put $4 Billion in ETFs on Rebound Bet. Oil investors are still betting on a rebound
after being proved wrong since October. They’ve poured more than $4 billion into oil exchange-traded products in the past four months even as prices tumbled
47 percent. That included the $1.99 billion added in January,
the biggest monthly inflow in six years.
- Pfizer(PFE) Flexes Muscle With Priciest Purchase of Decade. Pfizer Inc. is proving that when it sees
something it wants, it’s willing to pay up. The company is buying injectable-medicine maker Hospira
Inc. for about $17 billion, or $90 a share, a price that
Hospira’s stock has never come close to on its own. In turn,
Pfizer gains a steadily growing business to tack onto its
established drugs unit that it has discussed spinning off.
Wall Street Journal:
- U.S. Kerry Visits Ukraine, French, German Leaders to Follow in Bid to End Violence. Moscow Warns Any Military Aid Will be Seen As Threat to Russian Security. The diplomatic scramble to calm the conflict in eastern Ukraine
entered a new, urgent phase Thursday as Western leaders descended on
Kiev, while Moscow warned that any military aid to the country would be seen as a threat to Russian security. U.S.
Secretary of State John Kerry met Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko
in Kiev and repeated Western demands that Russian-backed separatists
pull back their fighters and arms. German Chancellor Angela Merkel
and French President François Hollande were due to arrive later in the
day on an emergency trip of their own, and to travel to Moscow to meet
with Russian President Vladimir Putin on Friday.
- Germany Cool on Greek Push for Bridge Program. Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis Meets With German Counterpart Wolfgang Schäuble in Berlin. Germany on Thursday dismissed Greece’s request for bridge funding
that would give it three months to negotiate new bailout terms,
insisting that the newly-elected government implement the conditions
tied to its agreed program. “We agreed to disagree,” German
Finance Minister Wolfgang Schäuble told a joint news conference with his
Greek counterpart, Yanis Varoufakis, after the two met in Berlin on Thursday morning.
CNBC:
ZeroHedge:
Business Insider:
Financial Times:
- Debt mountains spark fears of another crisis. The
world is awash with more debt than before the global financial crisis
erupted in 2007, with China’s debt relative to its economic size now
exceeding US levels, according to a report. Global debt has increased by
$57tn since 2007 to almost $200tn — far outpacing economic growth, calculates McKinsey & Co, the consultancy. As a share of gross domestic product, debt has risen from 270 per cent to 286 per cent.
Telegraph:
N-TV:
- Greece Must Respect Agreements, Germany's Brinkhaus Tells N-TV.
Greek govt must respect rules of aid agreements signed by its
predecessors, Ralph Brinkhaus, finance spokesman in parliament for
Chancellor Angela Merkel's Christian Democratic Union, says. Agreeing to
rule changes for Greece would prompt people in other euro region
countries that got aid to resist repayments. "We can't apply double
standards, we can't say some have to repay everything, some have to
stick to all the reforms, while others are getting relief," he said.
The Straits Times:
ISIS
has built near-impregnable base and mass appeal: New book - See more
at:
http://www.straitstimes.com/news/world/europe/story/isis-has-built-near-impregnable-base-and-mass-appeal-new-book-20150205#sthash.TSyXsl7s.dpuf
ISIS
has built near-impregnable base and mass appeal: New book - See more
at:
http://www.straitstimes.com/news/world/europe/story/isis-has-built-near-impregnable-base-and-mass-appeal-new-book-20150205#sthash.TSyXsl7s.dpuf
