Ted Williams writes:   Illegal trade in imperiled wildlife is rampant, and attempted controls are few and largely ineffective. Log on to most any international internet store that deals in wildlife or wildlife parts, and you’ll find a charnel house of endangered and protected species hawked openly or under phony names and in violation of US law and international agreements.

The world’s largest online marketplace by far, eBay, is one of the few that makes a serious effort to control wildlife smuggling by deleting ads for illegal products — but only the few it notices or hears about. Chris Nagano of the US Fish and Wildlife Service’s Endangered Species Division is a trained lepidopterist. When I asked him if he sees any ads for illegal butterflies on eBay he replied: “There are a number of imperiled butterflies openly advertised on eBay, including some listed under the Endangered Species Act or protected under laws of countries they inhabit. Some of these species are sold to collectors for hundreds or even thousands of dollars.”

Ivory products are the most popular wildlife items on internet markets, despite a global ban on ivory sales imposed by the 180-nation Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES). The National Academy of Sciences, a body of scholars established by the US Congress, estimates that 100,000 elephants were killed by poachers between 2010 and 2012, mostly to sate ivory demand of China’s newly-moneyed middle class. At that unsustainable rate elephants are likely to be extinct in the wild within two decades.  Illegal eBay Wildlife Sales

Keith Johnson writes:  European Union competition officials will likely throw the book at Russian energy giant Gazprom on Wednesday, flexing Brussels’s strongest muscle and potentially reshaping an energy sector that has worked largely to Moscow’s advantage since the 1970s.

EU Competition Commissioner Margrethe Vestager is expected to charge Gazprom with a bevy of anti-competitive practices, including denying pipeline access to other energy suppliers and charging discriminatory prices to certain customers.

This threatens to further ratchet up tensions between Brussels and Moscow that have been severely strained over the Ukraine crisis.

The EU case takes aim at three pillars of Gazprom’s longtime business model in the European market, the Russian firm’s biggest outlet for natural gas. At issue are Russian restrictions on the free flow of gas between European countries; limits on third-party access to gas pipelines; and the linkage of gas prices to crude oil prices, which EU officials argue has led to discriminatory pricing. All three practices under investigation potentially undermine Europe’s energy security. If they can be resolved either through negotiations with Gazprom or in the courts, it would help create a genuinely unified European energy market better able to withstand supply shocks.  EU Tightens Screws on Gazprom

George Friedman writes: The Greek crisis is moving toward a climax. The issue is actually quite simple. The Greek government owes a great deal of money to European institutions and the International Monetary Fund. It has accumulated this debt over time, but it has become increasingly difficult for Greece to meet its payments. If Greece doesn’t meet these payments, the IMF and European institutions have said they will not extend any more loans to Greece. Greece must make a calculation. If it pays the loans on time and receives additional funding, will it be better off than not paying the loans and being cut off from more?

A strategy inspired by Budapest would have the Greeks print drachmas and announce (not offer) that the debt would be repaid in that currency. The euro could still circulate in Greece and be legal tender, but the government would pay its debts in drachmas.

In considering this and other scenarios, the pervading question is whether Greece leaves or stays in the eurozone. But before that, there are still two fundamental questions. First, in or out of the euro, how does Greece pay its debts currently without engendering social chaos? The second and far more important question is how does Greece revive its economy? Lurching from debt payment to debt payment, from German and IMF threats to German and IMF threats is amusing from a distance. It does not, however, address the real issue: Greece, and other countries, cannot exist as normal, coherent states under these circumstances, and in European history, long-term economic dysfunction tends to lead to political extremism and instability. The euro question may be interesting, but the deeper economic question is of profound importance to both the debtor and creditors.  Repaying the Greek Debt

In the Economist:  China’s premier is fond of saying that the government has plenty of tools in its toolbox to combat the economy’s slowdown. Rummaging through the kit, the central bank produced a big wrench on Sunday: a 1 percentage-point reduction in the amount of cash that lenders must lock up as reserves. It is the largest cut in Chinese banks’ required reserve ratio (RRR) since late 2008, the nadir of the global financial crisis. It frees up nearly 1.3 trillion yuan ($210 billion) for new lending, money that should help shore up growth. It is likely, however, to also pour fuel on an already-sizzling stockmarket.

Judging by economic data alone, the move comes as little surprise. Nominal growth in the first quarter slumped to 5.8% from a year earlier, the lowest since the first quarter of 2009. Factory production is weak, lending growth has slowed and deflation is beginning to rear its head. China launched its easing cycle last November (it has cut interest rates twice and RRR once since then), and Mr Li has pledged to do more to support growth if needed. Additional policy easing seemed a foregone conclusion after all the sluggish recent data.

But the timing of the cut is something of a surprise. Required reserves play little role in the monetary policies of developed economies. In China, however, they have formed a crucial component of the framework for keeping the yuan steady. In the past, when foreign cash streamed into China via its trade surplus and amid speculative inflows, the central bank printed billions of yuan every month to soak up the flood. That would normally have been expected to cause inflation, but the central bank counteracted the effect by forcing lenders to lock up a large portion of the resulting cash as reserves. At its peak in 2011, China’s RRR reached 21.5%, a level with little precedent in other countries.

While China is still running a hefty trade surplus, speculative flows have become much more volatile. Cash enters the country some months and leaves it other months. With reduced inflows from abroad, the central bank no longer needs to intervene so heavily in the currency market. But it does need to come up with new ways of creating liquidity for the financial system. The most obvious is to normalise monetary policy by cutting RRR. Even with Sunday’s reduction, the ratio for the biggest banks sits at 18.5%—amounting to more than 20 trillion yuan worth of cash. Mr Li’s toolbox is far from empty.