August 28, 2015

Refugee crisis, ‘relief rally’ in the markets, Virginia shooting and gun control, Ukraine and do not ‘reply all!’

PNUT GALLERY

“Mamma Mia!” – an Italian commentator reacting to the world’s fastest man, Usain Bolt, being taken out by a Segway at the World Athletics Championships. Happy Weekend Pnutters!

IN A NUTSHELL: MUST READ

Refugee Crisis In Europe Reaches… Crisis Point

Austria became the latest front-line in the European refugee crisis as the bodies of 70 refugees were found in the back of an abandoned truck. This latest tragedy came as leaders huddled in Vienna to discuss their approach to the largest wave of refugees into Europe since the Second World War. In a separate (and all too familiar) incident, 500 refugees were feared dead when their boat capsized off Libya… Why is there a crisis? With conflicts in North Africa and the Middle East there has been a surge in refugees (four million from Syria alone). Many are using the summer months to gain access into the EU, overwhelming authorities in Italy, Greece, France, England, Hungary and the Balkans. There has been no coherent or unified response from Europe to the ever expanding crisis and rising body count…

Stock Markets: Play It Cool And Pretend Nothing Happened

Global markets had a “relief rally” yesterday as stocks everywhere went up! The Dow Jones closed up 2.3% to cap its strongest two day gain since 2008. The rally comes after a painful ride which saw China’s stock market lose almost $5 trillion in value (aka the GDP of France and Italy combined). Why the turnaround? Investors seemed to be thinking they might have overreacted last week after figures came out showing that the US economy was doing just fine, growing at 2.3% last quarter (no biggie). China also announced that it would give some provinces debt relief in order to boost growth. Greece has been asking Europe for more or less the same thing for about six years…

Pnut’s Nutshell on China

NUTS AND BOLTS: SHOULD READ

Virginia Shooting: An Update

Family members were left grappling for meaning after the on-air shooting of two journalists by a former co-worker. The father of Alison Parker, one of the victims, made a personal appeal to President Obama for gun reform. Her boyfriend also asked for dialogue on gun control. The Donald quickly dismissed guns as the problem, citing the killings as a mental health not a gun problem… the gun helped though Donald.

Ukraine Gives Shell Casing As Gift To Finance Minister

Ukraine reached an agreement with its hedge fund creditors yesterday to a 20% write down on its $18 billion foreign debt. US-born Finance Minister, Natalia Yaresko, received a painted artillery shell casing from her colleagues as a reward for helping the war-torn nation stave off bankruptcy. Bonds jumped on the news of the “win-win” deal. Russia, co-operative as ever, refused to participate.

Greece Appoints First Female Prime Minister

Greece’s President announced that Vasiliki Thanou, the current President of the Supreme Court, will become the first female Prime Minister until fresh elections can be held next month. Alexis Tsipras, resigned last week and called the fifth set of elections in six years in order to secure a fresh mandate after signing a bailout deal with creditors. The birthplace of democracy is rapidly becoming a little too used to elections.

Pnut’s Dispatch From Athens

#pnut4prez: Joe Biden May Not Fight To Be Prez

Vice-President Biden said in a conference call that he might not have the “emotional fuel” to run to be the leader of the free world. Biden, whose son Beau passed away in May, said that he would want to give his “whole heart and my whole soul” to running. Hillary, who is quietly building a Super Tuesday “firewall” to protect herself from rivals, said that she always thought this would be a “competitive campaign.” (yes but you probably hoped it wouldn’t be this competitive Hillary).

Keeping Our Eye On…

Facebooking: A new milestone for the company that aims to “connect the whole world” as one billion people (1 in 7 people on earth) used the platform in a single day. Impressive.
Oscar Pistorius: Paralympic athlete Oscar Pistorius remains in jail for three more weeks to await parole review for his five-year sentence for killing his girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp.
Get Droned: Junaid Hussain, ISIS’s social media manager, was reportedly killed in a US drone strike.

LOOSE NUTS: FOR YOUR ENJOYMENT

Never Press Reply All….

In the latest example of a “reply allpocalypse“, an employee called Vince at Thomson Reuters, the international mass media organization, accidentally sent an e-mail to a large group of people in his company. The eventual chain ended up reaching thirty thousand inboxes as employees kept replying to ask other employees to…..stop replying. Twitter users adopted #Reutersreplygate to report on every minute detail of the saga. One Twitter user wrote, “if I’ve learned one thing from #reutersreplygate, it’s that the human race is truly doomed”. We agree.

Great Pnut Weekend Reads:

The New Yorker investigates what Chinese lingerie merchants are doing in rural Egypt.
Humans of New York goes to Iran to see what Humans of Iran are up to.
How did Presidents fly before Air Force One (via The Week)?
Wondering what The Donald’s first 100 days as President would look like? Politico tries to find out.
More from Politico on The Donald. How did the Trump family make their wealth?
Why does luxury in London seem immune to global economic volatility?

10 years since Hurricane Katrina… Obama reflects from New Orleans.

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