In a banking system built on the foundation of money being created by banks through granting loans and fractional reserves, insolvency is the natural state of things.  In this context, the confidence of the depositors and the guarantees granted by the state, along with the permanent support of the central banks, represent essential conditions for the functioning of financial institutions. "The truth about banks" is the title of an article from the Finance & Development magazine of the IMF (author's note vol. 53, no. 1, March 2016), in which the authors, Michael Kumhof and Zoltan Jakab, write that "banks create new money when they grant loans, a phenomenon which can start and exacerbate financial crises".   Creating money out of thin air represents "a critical vulnerability of financial systems" for two reasons which have been known at least since the time of the Great Depression in the first half of the 20th century. First of all, "if banks are free to create money when they grant loans, then that amplifies the potential to create cyclical booms and busts, especially when banks mistakenly assess the debtors' repayment ability", according to the economists of the IMF.

A suitcase filled with multiple passports?  That’s not just the stuff of spy movies anymore. Increasingly, a growing number of high-net worth individuals are looking to have a passport portfolio. This has led to a proliferation of so-called citizenship-by-investment or economic citizenship programs that allow individuals from all over the world to legitimately acquire passports. The wealthy, especially in emerging market economies, see buying citizenship or residency rights as a means of greater global mobility (visa free travel in many countries), tax planning, and family security.  In exchange, countries administering such programs receive significant financial inflows into their economies.  Indeed, offering citizenship in return for investment has been a “win-win” for some small Caribbean states. The substantial inflows of funds from these programs have helped boost employment and growth. Inflows to the public sector alone in St. Kitts and Nevis had grown to nearly 25 percent of GDP as of 2013. Now more and more countries have joined the game. While all well and good, these countries face the critical challenge of preserving the credibility of their citizenship programs and weeding out the risks to governance and sustainability. In addition, small countries may also confront sizeable macro-challenges in managing large inflows.

Turkish media are widely reporting two men as having orchestrated the attempted coup. One of these is General Akin Ozturk, the former commander of the Turkish Air Force, who retired from the military in August 2015, but who continued to serve as a member of the Supreme Military Council. The second indvidual is Lieutenant-General Metin Iyidil, the Combat and Support Training commander of the Land Forces Training and Doctrine Command. Gaza's Hamas rulers have congratulated Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan for quashing an attempted military coup. The Islamic militant group condemned the attempt as a "vicious'' plot to overthrow Erdogan. The Turkish leader has been a staunch supporter of Hamas and a fierce critic of Israel. Hamas supporters took to the streets in several places across the Gaza Strip to celebrate the coup's failure, raising Turkish flags and posters bearing Erdogan's image. Turkey recently restored ties with Israel after a six-year lull following a deadly Israeli naval raid to stop an activist flotilla aiming to breach the Gaza blockade.  

 

In its over a hundred fifty years of its life, it has rung the time of history! The hour of the imperial greatness, spanning more than half of the Earth's surface, as well as the hour of the long sunset of Great Britain's global power. The sad and scary hours of the threat of a military invasion which, since the destruction of the invincible Armada (1587) seemed just a ghost forever stuck in the fog of history. It rang the long awaited hour of Victory, at the end of the first and second world war. It gave the time of NATO as well as the return of the UK to the post-war game in Europe. It has accurately marked the beginning and ending hour of the cold war. It has said almost everything about the rule of a Queen who watches, coldly, equal to herself and not at all moved by the ebb and flow of time, over the land where her authority is still the cornerstone of the most resilient and complex institutions of Democracy. Just like the clock which has been named the Queen of Elizabeth has counted without fail, monotonously, the hours of the politician of the day, the ephemeris that succeed each other through the imposing building of the Parliament, on Thames' Western Bank, or at Downing Street 10 and 11, who are allowed, for one second to think that they are the ones setting the course of power.  Today the clock in Westminster will ring the Hour of Referendum! A truly exceptional procedure in the British decision making process. Thus, rarely used. It has been put to work in 1975, to seal the UK's participation in the institutional system of the European Communities ("the return is the case of the decisions concerning Scotland's separation in 1997 and 2014, just like local referendums have preceded and reinforced important decisions concerning the powers delegated to the authorities in Scotland, Wales or Northern Ireland. Looked upon favorably by the "modernists", the referendum is viewed by the "purists", as more of a weakness of representative democracy. A kind of parasite fungus that it is better to avoid, the more attractive it looks. The main argument: "The overall opinion" is rarely the same as an informed opinion. A recent study shows that the Brits are wrong about almost every important thing they are asked about in the polls! That fact isn't limited to that area! As for the politicians of the older generations, some have not been shy in saying about the referendum that "it is an instrument that is completely foreign to our traditions (British)...which was most often used by Nazism and Fascism." (Clement Attlee).

Obama: support democratically elected government

The White House has just released a statement on the reports of an attempted coup, saying that Barack Obama and secretary of state John Kerry “agreed that all parties in Turkey should support the democratically-elected Government of Turkey, show restraint, and avoid any violence or bloodshed”.
The state department will “continue to focus on the safety and security of US citizens in Turkey,” the statement added.

A terrorist who used a hired lorry to kill at least 84 people in a rampage during Bastille Day celebrations in Nice has been named as a convicted criminal well known to the police for armed attacks. Tunisian-born Mohamed Lahouaiej Bouhlel, a 31-year-old delivery driver, was reported to be a French passport holder who lived in the Riviera city and was regularly in trouble with the law.

At least 10 children are among the dead following the "cowardly and barbaric" atrocity that left at least one British national among the many injured. Officials feared the death toll will rise, as dramatic footage emerged of the mass killer being shot dead by police in the cab of his truck.  As hundreds remained in hospital - including 18 fighting for their lives in intensive care - investigators have been searching the home of Bouhlel in the Abattoirs area of Nice and carried out a controlled explosion on a white box van nearby...The fact that the killer was known to the authorities will be of grave concern to those trying to prevent terrorist attacks in France.  A recent Paris parliamentary investigation into last year’s attacks identified multiple failings by France’s intelligence agencies.  New Prime Minister Theresa May said Britain must redouble its efforts to defeat  "brutal" terrorist "murderers" after the "horrifying" attack, as she called a meeting of senior officials in the Government's  emergency Cobra committee. 

The new British prime minister, Theresa May, took office on Wednesday (13 July) amid indications she might not be an easy partner for the EU in talks to organise the UK's exit from the bloc.

In phone talks with German chancellor Angela Merkel, French president Francois Hollande and Irish prime minister Enda Kenny, she said the UK would "need some time to prepare" for Brexit negotiations. She added she hoped the talks "could be conducted in a constructive and positive spirit", according to her office. But EU leaders have started to put pressure on her to trigger Article 50, the procedure to exit the EU. Hollande "repeated his desire that negotiations for Britain's exit from the European Union should be launched as quickly as possible", a statement from his office said.  In his congratulation letter to May, European Commission Jean-Claude Juncker said that the UK and the EU had to "address soon" the "new situation" created by the Brexit vote on 23 June.

He added he looked forward to learning about May's "intentions in this regard."

On Sunday, Merkel had told Germany's ZDF channel that "the decision has been taken … and the next step is to invoke Article 50." In an interview with the Polish weekly Politiyka, European Council president Donald Tusk said on Wednesday that "no-one should be seething with desire to punish, humiliate [the UK] for what they have done to us", but he added that "we cannot let them profit from Brexit, as that would be lethal for the EU"  In her first statement as prime minister, Theresa May focused on domestic issues and did not develop her views on Brexit. "We are living through an important moment in our country’s history. Following the referendum, we face a time of great national change," she said.