Via Zero Hedge, with Germany announcing a whole range of measures in an effort to prevent more European area financial unrest (italics mine):

Do You See What Happens Larry When You Ban Naked Shorting, CDS Trading And Institute A Transaction Tax With A 6 Hour Notice?

(Wasp: headline refers to graphic of Euro going to $1.20 in trading today)

Additionally, with tens of billions in sovereign CDS scrambling to unwind overnight with no prior warning, you will see some seismic moves via arb desks. When Lehman blew up, CDS traders at least got a heads up that Sunday. This crisis is rapidly becoming worse than Lehman.

It makes you wonder exactly why there is such an unseemly rush to introduce these measures, especially since the ink on the  recent $1 trillion Euro area bailout hasn’t even had time to dry yet.

The selection of comments below from this and other articles suggest much as I was thinking – what exactly is coming up in the news in the next few days!

They are telegraphing the crisis, if you ask me.

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Yes, that seems to be the case.

This is a measure of what they know.

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One wonders just how horrible the news flow over the next 24 hours will be for this drastic measure to be introduced.

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Isn’t tomorrow the Greek bond redemption date everyone was worried about?  Something like $30-35 billion?

Is Germany telling everyone Greece wont get the bailout?

Therefore, German banks would get slaughtered…..

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Ah yes. the truth finally comes out!

“A Bingo has been called. Please hold on to your cards as we validate the numbers.”

And, following on from all that, now it just gets really weird :

The latest bombshell: German Finance Ministry now saying it will likely Ban EUR derivatives that don’t hedge against FX risk. And good luck quantifying what FX risk is legally allowed to be hedged. Look for the EURUSD market not to plunge, but to simply shut down as a result of this. Europe is about to isolate itself from capital markets entirely.

One to watch in the next few days.

All we need now is for Katla to go pop – ooh wait, was that an earthquake under Katla yesterday?

On May 17, 2010 08:32 UTC, The Icelandic Met office earthquake map indicates that a small earthquake has occurred at the Katla location. In what could be an early indication of the event that is expected to occur (an eruption of Katla), a small earthquake is reported at the site. Although a single earthquake is not a precursor of an eminent eruption, it could be the first ’sigh’ of the awakening powerful giant.

And finally, this page has a wonderful animation of the past weeks weather and volcanic ash spread due to the continuing eruption of Eyjafjallajökull.