February 01, 2016

Hello Iowa!

 
 
   

THE WORLD IN A NUTSHELL

FEBRUARY 1, 2016  /  SUBSCRIBE

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PNUT GALLERY

What would a Trump Presidency look like? We tried to imagine it in a series we call “The Man in the Trump Tower.” It’s a scary, scary future. Read the first installment here. 

 

IN A NUTSHELL: MUST READ

#pnut4prez: We Almost Get To Stop Hearing About Iowa The US Presidential election kicks off today with the Iowa caucuses. Here is the lowdown:

  • The Des Moines Register (notorious for getting it right) released its latest poll on Saturday giving Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump the lead in their respective parties. FiveThirtyEight (legendary polling website) also predicts Trump and Clinton victories. 
  • The New York Times formally endorsed Hillary Clinton and John Kasich (Republicans will definitely vote for him now). Wait for our endorsements soon…
  • The US State Department deemed 22 of Clinton’s emails on her private server “top secret,” which could complicate her campaign (particularly in the general election).
  • What comes next? New Hampshire will vote on February 9. Over the next two months we should know who the Democratic and Republican nominee will be (and if Bloomberg will run). The general election will be on November 8… it’s a long journey ahead. 
Follow us on Twitter and Facebook as we announce the winner. 

PNUT READ: What To Expect In Iowa Today
Syria: Carnage Near Damascus, Confusion In Geneva
Suicide attacks near a Shia shrine south of Damascus claimed more than 50 lives yesterday as some opposition leaders were trying to decide if they should attend peace talks in Geneva. The attack, carried out by ISIS (who wasn’t invited to Geneva), was meant to derail the talks. 

The opposition in Geneva (which represents only a fraction of the opposition forces in Syria – no Kurds, ISIS or al-Qaeda) are demanding humanitarian pre-conditions be met before the talks start. The government said it wouldn’t agree to anything before the talks. Meanwhile, Turkey said Russia violated its airspace again (thankfully, it didn’t shoot down the plane this time). Confusing? Very much so. 

 

NUTS AND BOLTS: SHOULD READ

US Economy: Not Quite So Hot, Hot, HotUS GDP grew at a disappointing 0.7% in the fourth quarter of 2015. The US is the only advanced economy that is supposedly “healthy” with the US Federal Reserve lifting rates in the last quarter while Europe and Japan have been printing money and employing negative rates and China struggling to deal with a financial crash and economic slowdown. The news makes investors feel even more uncomfortable after their worst January in seven years.   

Europe Comes Up With New Policy To Not Solve Refugee CrisisThe EU’s latest plan for dealing with the refugee crisis is to keep as many of them as possible in Greece, a country with an economic depression and a powerful neo-Nazi political party, while doing nothing to prevent refugees from drowning (at least 37 this weekend) while trying to make it to Greece. Meanwhile, Europol estimates that 10,000 refugee children have gone missing since the crisis started and masked men attacked migrants in Stockholm. 

Keeping Our Eye On…

 
  • Western Wall: Israel designated a portion of the Western Wall, the holiest site in Judaism, for non-Orthodox Jews where men and women will now be able to pray together. 
  • Boko Haram: Nigerian extremist group Boko Haram killed 50 people in a series of attacks on villages in North-Eastern Nigeria. The attack comes a month after the Nigerian President declared the group “technically defeated.”
  • Zika: Brazil sought to reassure athletes and spectators that they faced no threat to their health from the Zika virus. The country has deployed 220,000 troops to combat the virus. 
 

LOOSE NUTS: FOR YOUR ENJOYMENT

Israeli Vulture Cleared Of Spying…  Lebanese villagers released an Israeli vulture (the actual bird) after it was cleared of spying for Israel. The vulture had a tracking device attached to its tail which caused the villagers to suspect that it was surreptitiously photographing them (something a drone could probably do much easier). The UN had to intervene to ensure the bird was returned to the Israeli Nature and Parks Authority. Apparently this isn’t the first time this happened… 

Parting Thought: Wine, Nude Statues And Being A Good HostDuring Iranian President Rouhani’s visit to Europe last week the Italians covered up some nude statues and the French refused to host a lunch if they couldn’t serve wine (Sacre Bleu!). We felt this piece by the New Yorker summed up the controversy in a thought-provoking way. Tweet us your thoughts on the issue (or reply to this email)! 

 
Trump debates Trump. Trump wins.

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