F&O Monday headlines

When the earth shakes under our feet we flee click-bait sites to seek informed, smart analysis. Suggestions for authoritative information on today’s breaking news:

A protester holds a banner in Greek colors in front of the parliament building during an anti-austerity rally in Athens, Greece, June 29, 2015. REUTERS/Yannis Behrakis

On Greece and the European Union: Wire service reporting is often as neutral as it gets. Here’s Reuters: Greek Debt Crisis 2015, Live updates on the debt crisis in Greece. For varied perspectives, including pieces by scholars and the main players go to Social Europe: “Where Now For Greece?. France has played a key role, at some risk to its relationship with Germany. Read Le Monde (in French) Crise Grecque or, in English, France24. Here is Deutsche Welle’s page in English, Greece bailout – live updates. Guardian Eurozone Crisis reporting has been fully resourced and is up to date. Many commerce sites approach all stories from an assumption the “free” market is always right. Some reading: Bloomberg; Financial Times; Economist, Alexis Tsipras’s U-turn.

F&O’s Jonathan Manthorpe has a firm grasp on the back story. Read his column, The Greek tragedy: a drama with many villains and no heroes. (Cllick here for the required subscription or $1 day pass to our site required). Excerpt:

There is no shortage of villains in this Greek tragedy. It hasn’t helped matters that the advent of the euro has been a huge boon for the EU’s industrialized economies, especially Germany. Because the euro includes dud or semi-functional economies like Greece, Portugal, Spain, Italy and Ireland, the international market place marks the currency’s value down against other hard currencies like the U.S. dollar. The result is that German exports are 50 per cent cheaper, by some analysis, than they would be if the country still used its former currency, the deutchmark.

On Iran, our analysis:

Hardliners prepare to sink Iranian nuclear deal, by Jonathan Manthorpe (sybscription or $1 day pass required)

With a deal on Iran’s nuclear program in the offing, hardline opponents in Washington and Tehran are sharpening their teeth and honing their claws to a razor’s edge. In both capitals, the deal — nearly 20 years in the making — faces being derailed by intransigent political ideologues with little long-term vision.

The end is NOT nigh, by Tom Regan (by donation)

It’s enough to give a person permanent hypertension. Russian president Vladimir Putin likes to flex his military muscles more than a steroid pumped-up body builder. China wants to challenge the United States for dominance in Asia. North Korea’s top leadership is, well, crazy. Al-Qaeda and ISIS are messing up the Middle East and threatening citizens around the world. And what ISIS and Al-Qaeda aren’t doing to destabilize the region, Iran is. It looks like the world is more dangerous that it has ever been for Uncle Sam, and Canada. Except that … it’s not.

Looking ahead this week, look waaay up, to the heavens. Pluto has put a spell on the global imagination. Why? Start here: This is Why You Have Not Seen A Bunch of Images of Pluto This Weekend: American Geophysical Union. At about 7:50 AM Tuesday, New York time, the New Horizons probe will pass about 12,500 km from Pluto, and the most sophisticated set of instruments ever put in deep space will record high resolution images of the dwarf planet.