SUNDAY 6/29/14

WHO says the ebola outbreak in West Africa is the most deadly on record. Nearly 640 people have been infected in Guinea, Liberia, Sierra and Leone. Approximately 400 have died; a fatality rate of 63%. A meeting of WHO experts and leaders from 11 surrounding countries will convene in Ghana to strategize on preventing any further spread of the ebola virus. Unfortunately, foreign doctors are not trusted and are being prevented from entering towns by machete-wielding tribal leaders. The outbreak could easily spin out of control.

Iraq is in chaos. The Iraq forces push to retake Tikrit but are pushed back by the ISIS radicals. Jordan, one of the few US allies in the neighborhood, is buckling under the influx of refugees from Syria and Iraq. Over 500K refugees are fleeing Iraq in the last few weeks. The Iraq conflict is worsening and can easily last for years or decades. The ISIS extremists are beheading children. Another troubling development is fighting now occurring south of Baghdad instigated by a regional pocket of Sunni siding with ISIS to fight back against PM al-Maliki’s Shiite favoritism. The news on the fighting south of Baghdad is being muzzled since the consequences for Iraq are extremely serious. Baghdad is being surrounded by pro-Sunni forces. The country is lost into a Sunni-Shiite civil war.

The US lost thousands of troops to death and disability and spent billions of dollars in Iraq all for nothing. President Bush is to blame for going in creating the mess and President Obama is to blame for pulling out exacerbating the mess. The president may receive a legacy of ending the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan but at the same time he may receive the dubious distinction of creating world war across the Middle East and northern Africa (Syria, Iraq, Iran, Egypt and Libya) due to the US’s inaction, lack of global leadership and haphazard figure-it-out-as-you-go foreign policy. Traders, however, do not care about geopolitical events since the Fed and other central banker money papers over any problems pumping the stock market higher.

The flood of immigrants across the southern US border is not abating. ...........















[Text is Redacted: Purchase June 2014-06 to Read the Complete Chronology]

A CCL cruise ship in the Holland America line catches fire and must return to port at Seattle. There are no reported injuries. LUV co-founder Rollin King dies at 83.