The Federal Reserve kept interest rates unchanged Wednesday and said it’s closely monitoring global economic and market turmoil, but gave no signal that it’s retreating yet from plans to raise rates gradually this year.  An increase was not expected Wednesday after the Fed lifted its benchmark rate last month for the first time in nearly a decade -- by a modest quarter-percentage point -- and said it aims to nudge up the rate slowly the next few years amid tepid economic growth.  Some analysts expected the Fed to hint that even a March hike had become less likely after this month’s troubling news about China’s slowdown, sharp fall in stock and oil prices, and concerns that the 6 ½-year-old U.S. recovery may be petering out. Adding to that mindset is that the cheap crude and a strengthening dollar have further pushed down meager inflation. In a statement after a two-day meeting, the Fed said it’s “closely monitoring global economic and financial developments and is assessing their implications for the labor market and inflation, and for the balance of the risks to the outlook.”  The comment suggests the Fed is taking a wait-and-see approach to the recent troubles, but isn’t yet backtracking from plans to gradually boost interest rates. Last month, the Fed provided a more upbeat view, saying the risks to its economic and labor market outlook were “balanced.” On Wednesday, it didn't say risks had shifted to the downside but did note it's keeping a close eye on the overseas troubles.

British couples should not try for a baby for a month if a partner has just returned from one of 23 countries affected by the Zika virus, public health officials have warned. Public Health England (PHE) said men should wear condoms for 28 days after coming home from countries like Brazil and Mexico if their partner was at risk of pregnancy, or already pregnant. Men who had suffered an unexplained fever while travelling, or who had been diagnosed with the virus, should avoid unprotected sex, or trying for children for six months. Woman have already been advised to avoid travelling to infected countries if they might be pregnant or are trying for a child. Around half a million people are believed to have travelled to Zika infected countries in the last six months, according to the most recent figures from the Office for National Statistics. The virus has already caused nearly 4,000 cases of malformed babies in the Americas and the World Health Organisation warned yesterday that the disease was spreading so quickly that four million people could be infected by the end of the year. Although the virus is mainly transmitted through mosquitoes, PHE said sexual transmission had been recorded in a ‘limited number of cases.’ Public Health England advised: “If a female partner is at risk of getting pregnant, or is already pregnant, condom use is advised for a male traveller for 28 days after his return from a Zika transmission area if he had no symptoms of unexplained fever and rash.  “Condom use is advised for a male traveller for 6 months following recovery if a clinical illness compatible with Zika virus infection or laboratory confirmed Zika virus infection was reported.”  Six Britons are already known to have picked up the disease through mosquito bites while travelling in Columbia, Suriname, Mexico, the Cook Islands and Guyana. Zika was first discovered in Africa in the 1940s but the first outbreak outside of Africa, Asia and the Pacific Islands only occurred last May, when a case was reported in Brazil. Since then the disease has spread to 22 other countries in south and central America and the Caribbean.

What is happening now is extremely dangerous because it could easily lead to a repeat of the 2008 financial crisis, only on steroids. If you look up a graph of global oil demand, you will note that, except during brief recessions, oil demand always goes up. That is because new oil consuming machines, which perform more work than humans alone could ever hope to do, are constantly being built. Last year China alone built 22,000,000 new vehicles. The world population is increasing, and globalization has displaced manufacturing far away from where products are finally consumed. So more oil is continually needed. Ask yourself what has to happen if all the oil the system needed wasn't available. It follows that since there is no substitute for petroleum in transportation that can replace the energy now obtained from oil in any reasonable period of time, the economy would be forced to shrink. Wishing won't deliver goods from China to the US, or move people to work, or fly tourists from the EU to the Olympics in Brazil. The price of oil could go to $300 a barrel, and the amount of oil produced could only be expanded so fast. It takes time to find oil and drill wells. Any shortage caused by lack of investment in oil exploration today, will take time to remedy. Therein lies a potentially dangerous condition - the time delay getting new oil to a refinery. With the record level of debt just about everywhere, and with interest rates near zero, a recession caused by a physical shortage of oil could rapidly transform a shrinking economy, otherwise known as a recession, into a financial collapse that takes down the banks and everything else. We could regret that today's low oil prices caused the search for replacement supplies to virtually disappear. That could be the thing that pops the global debt bubble that has been blowing for the last 35 years. That experience would be a lot more unpleasant than expensive gasoline or diesel fuel. All this talk of shutting down US shale producers is silly. Any shutdown forced on them by a world oil price at which US shale can't compete will only be temporary. Even if most of the current US frackers go broke, so what? The oil is still there and somebody owns it. When prices rise, as the Saudis pray, back will come the frackers. And what with Iraq coming back on stream, the oil world has changed, not that Saudi seems to have noticed. OPEC has never been anything other than a price fixing cartel and the sooner it collapses the better.

Europe is scrambling to save the Schengen zone from collapse with a plan to seal off Greece and introduce internal border checks for up to two years. Jean-Claude Juncker backed a plan to reinforce Greece’s northern border with Macedonia with a taskforce of police drawn from across Europe.  Athens reacted with fury as leaders called for permanent refugee camps with a capacity for 300,000 refugees to be set up.  At a summit in Amsterdam, interior ministers instructed the European Commission to draw up plans to impose internal border controls within the Schengen zone for up to two years. Theo Francken, the Belgian immigration minister, said “closed facilities” run by the EU and holding up to 300,000 people should be set up in the country.  He said “the Greeks now need to bear the consequences” of being unable to stop the migrant flows. He added the Greek “state structure is just too weak to do it themselves – apparently.”  Greece responded with furious and accused the EU of peddling “lies” that it does not want to control its border. Ioannis Mouzalas, Greece’s minister for migration, said the plans would turn his country into a “cemetery of souls.” He said his government had not been consulted fully on the Slovenian plan. "We are tired to listen that we cannot secure our borders," he said. "We are told that we don't want coastguards, it's a lie - we want more coastguards."  "It is very difficult to stop small boats coming except sinking or shooting them, which is against our European values and Greek values and we will not do that," he said. Theresa May, the Home Secretary who attended the summit said Europe needed “urgent action” to deal with an “unprecedented migration crisis.”  “Unfortunately what we've had is more talk than action,” she said.

EU Member States have accepted, on Tuesday, the European Commission’s (EC) proposal to invest 217 million euros in 15 trans-European energy infrastructure projects, according to the EC. Of this amount, Transgaz will receive 179.3 million euros for development in Romania of a gas pipeline that will link Romania to Bulgaria and Hungary, part of of the broader BRUA pipeline, intended to reach Austria.  Of the 15 projects selected by the Commission, 9 are in natural gas (which will receive financial assistance of 207 million euros) and 6 in the electricity sector (which will benefit from a total aid of 10 million euros). Divided on other considerations, of the 15 projects, only two are construction works, with a total funding of 188 million euros. The other 29 million euros will provide the necessary funding for studies and analysis for 13 projects. “With this funding we will help secure supplies and we fully integrate the European energy market by connecting networks across Europe. We must continue to modernize our energy networks to bring any isolated country in the European energy market”, said the European Commissioner for Energy, Miguel Arias Cañete. In total, for 2014-2020 were allocated 5.35 billion euros for energy infrastructure of trans-European energy infrastructure under Projects of Common Interests label.

Liam Fox has launched the national grass-roots campaign to persuade voters to leave the European Union.  In a barnstorming speech to a rally of more than 2,000 people, the former Defence Secretary said he wanted to live in a country that was “an independent sovereign nation” again. Britain used to be “proud” and “free” and in this role saved Europe from its own “folly” in two world wars, the Tory MP said. Dr Fox dismissed his party leader’s attempts to renegotiate the terms of Britain’s membership. He said he was “sad” and “angry” to see “a British Prime Minister take the begging bowl around the capitals of Europe just to change the benefit laws in our country”.  “Insecurity for our country comes from open borders and uncontrolled migration,” he said. “I do not want the mistakes made by Angela Merkel in opening the doors to migrants in Germany to be reflected in Britain’s security. “Germany has discovered in Cologne and other places exactly what it may mean when you do not know who you have allowed into your country.” When these migrants have gained citizenship in another EU country, “they will have the right to enter the United Kingdom if we remain a member of the European Union. That for me is the real security issue at risk in this referendum.” In his speech, which was greeted with cheers and applause, Dr Fox said Britain would never be isolated in the world if it left the EU. He said the UK would remain a member of the UN security council, continue to have a “special relationship” with the United States. “This country has never been isolated. But what we have been is proud, independent and free.” Because of that “we were able to save the European Continent twice” in the 20th century “from their own folly” in two world wars.

Despite the evidence that migrants from the Middle East and Africa are continuing to flee war and poverty in their home countries and will strike out to Europe again in huge numbers this year, European leaders have taken no major new steps to curb the flow. Nor have they agreed on a comprehensive border policy or prepared for another influx that could rival last year’s, when more than a million asylum seekers reached the Continent, many of them headed to Germany.  Prime Minister Manuel Valls of France issued a stark warning in an interview broadcast on Friday about the future of a unified Europe, saying the very idea was under threat unless the Continent could protect its borders.  Speaking to the BBC at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, Mr. Valls said the Continent could not accommodate the enormous numbers of migrants and warned that they could destabilize European societies. “If Europe is not capable of protecting its own borders, it’s the very idea of Europe that will be questioned,” he said. “Europe has forgotten that borders are required.”  The Schengen zone, which permits largely unchecked movement across most of the Continent and was described by Mr. Valls as “one of the great European projects,” has been under severe strain as countries have introduced border controls aimed at stemming the flow of migrants.