Here’s the one word in Janet Yellen’s speech that the markets should be very worried about

Please see the source for the video.

 

The stock market has churned a bit in the last few days. Some Wall Street wags have suggested that concerns over the President’s tweet storm over the weekend, or North Korea’s missile firings, may have been behind the stall in the market.

Certainly, political uncertainty, and geo-political risk, have caused some consternation in global markets, while concerns about the pace of gains in stocks, coupled with perceived lofty valuations have also provided a mild headwind on Wall Street in the last few days.

While the market appears to be happily embracing a coming rates hike from the Federal Reserve, it seems to me that market participants may have glossed over a very important comment from Fed Chair, Janet Yellen, last Friday.

Ireland “Especially Exposed” To “International Shocks” Warns Central Bank

Ireland remains especially exposed to another financial shock because of the extremely high levels of public and private debt, the open nature of the economy, and Brexit, Irish Central Bank Governor Philip Lane has warned in a pre-budget letter to Minister for Finance, Michael Noonan.

“Ireland is especially exposed due to the legacy of high public and private debt levels, the sensitivity of small, highly-open economies to international shocks and Brexit-related vulnerabilities,” Ireland’s Central Bank Governor said.

The letter was covered in the Irish Independent, Irish Times and Irish Examiner. This is something we covered in our interview with Max Keiser last week – see here.

EX-CIA GOLDMAN ANALYST: ‘We are in an extraordinarily dangerous time right now’

Robert Dannenberg, who is also a 24-year CIA veteran, believes that Russia is the top strategic threat from a US perspective.

“We are in an extraordinarily dangerous time right now because both Russia and NATO are starting to exercise substantial military activity in close proximity to each other in Eastern Europe and the Baltics,” Dannenberg said in an interview included in a July 9 Goldman Sachs analyst note.

Dannenberg believes that there’s a high risk of an unintended escalation, and notes that “many of the channels of rapid military and intelligence communications that were carefully constructed during the Cold War have been dismantled, lamentably, mostly from the US side.” 

Russian spy base in Syria used to monitor rebels and Israel seized

In the video footage logos of Syrian intelligence and Russian military intelligence can be seen on posters hung up on the wall. Photo: Youtube

 

Syrian rebels have seized a joint Russian-Syrian spy base which was used to gather intelligence on the movements of rebel groups and Israel.

Located in southern Syria close to the Israel border, the base on the Tel Al Hara mountain known as ‘Centre C’ by Russian intelligence was taken over by the Free Syrian Army – the largely moderate, Western-backed rebel group – on Sunday.

The capture of the base, which was abandoned prior to the rebels’ arrival, came after weeks of fierce fighting involving Syrian government troops as well as Jabhat al-Nusra, al-Qaeda’s Syrian branch.

In video footage of the base released by the Free Syrian Army, a rebel officer is shown pointing out maps, photographs and information in Russian and Arabic, as well as the logos of Syrian intelligence and Russian military intelligence (GRU), which deals with signal intelligence.