Leadership in the Italian navy has fears that terrorists may be trying to seek anonymously into Europe by migrant boats, refugee processing centres and camps having been over-whelmed for some time by the huge numbers of people fleeing strife and poverty in Africa. Thousands are risking their lives on a very difficult and dangerous journey across the Mediterranean to a safe haven island, and then, having survived, are greeted with an uncertain reception.
Although there have been recent developments in the court room that seem to favour hyper-capitalism, I suspect that litigation between the government of Argentina and a hedge-fund manager is far from over. 
When the South American nation's economy was down-and-out and on the verge of collapse, a band of merry angel investors bought up bonds at a few pennies on the dollar. Now that the Argentine economy is back on its feet and the bonds have matured, from being not worth the paper they were printed on to being worth billions of dollars (on paper) and the hedge-fund team is demanding payment in full. Never mind that making this payment would destroy the Argentine market all over again and the their initial predatory investment did not in anyway help the country to extract itself from the financial mess, which is ostensibly why countries expose themselves to such vultures in the first place. US judges have again ruled that the hedge-fund manager has the right to his claim—though it would be nothing more than a Pyrrhic victory. Though smug and satisfied with this impossible ruling, I think that they would like nothing more than to see the proceedings drag on and only threaten to foreclose on Argentina, since that's what banks do best. As sad as this tale is, it is not unique.
With historically low interest rates, banks are disinclined still to lend to mere mortals when or conduct the non-swash-buckling daily work of the institutions, being that the banks themselves can afford to borrow money from central banks the world over at say one percent interest and use that loan to purchase government bonds and securities, which pays dividends back to the bank of two to three percent, effectively making the government pay banks for this bit of the banksters' entertainment. Why would the bother with anything else than this safe and secure scheme? Government and the markets conspire to keep this economic theatre going, making cosmetic adjustments here and there when the system looks in danger of collapse.
I wonder when and why 'tis, archaic but a formal elision in the English language—for it is and possibly with a grammatical mandate that one finds in other languages, like French and German, was transformed into the more familiar, yet considered acceptable only in speech and not committed to paper (though those standards are generally relaxed), contraction it's.
Attested use of 'tis extends back to the year 1450, but I suspect it was spoken for generations before being committed to paper, and it's appeared from the late 1600s on, around the same time as English writing started using an apostrophe (adopted from the French style) to stand in for the lost letters and sounds. Both flow when spoken, as do dozens of others, but given the legacy of certain well-defined instances of stock-phrases where 'tis does not ring as antique, I wonder what caused this shift from fore to aft. With the exception of won't, most English contractions are not really economising agents, usually just exchanging in print one character for another—whereas with Norse languages, at least in regional parlance, whole hackneyed phrases could be expressed with brevity, though not necessarily intelligibility outside of ones region. 'Twas is also a good question over it's—it is, it was or carelessly possessive. Like with the case of 'tis and it's, I wonder if there are any other historical examples, not frozen by song or tale, where there was a similar sort of reshuffling and an abbreviation that was rearranged. Once upon a time cannot was rendered ca'n't.
Already facing bullying by US authorities for violating (US) economic sanctions imposed against certain unfriendly nations during the past decade, France's diplomatic judgment and will is being freshly questioned by America. It’s a tragic irony that a nation’s banks and military-industrial complex, instead of the crown and sceptre, have become the synecdoche for a government, people and posture. Told it would be unwise to allow the sale of a new warship to Russia, the French government appears to be the victim of blackmail—by some estimations. Given that the fines for sanctions, in the billions and far exceeding the bank’s annual profits, were already reduced in exchange for pleading guilty to charges of falsifying records and conspiracy (bad behavior certainly, but unrelated to the indictment of doing business with Iran, Cuba et. al) and the punitive scolding of denying the bank the ability to conduct dollar transactions was dropped, it seems like it can’t be anything else than extortion and backing out of a deal with Russia might bring the judgment down further.
