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MORNING BID EUROPE-An end to the Russo-Turkish "War" of 2016

* A look at the day ahead from European Economics and Politics Desk Chief Jeremy Gaunt and Nigel Stephenson, chief correspondent, EMEA markets. The views expressed are their own.

LONDON, Aug 9 (Reuters) - Russia's Vladimir Putin and Turkey's Tayyip Erdogan have a lot in common. They are what old-style newspapers liked to call "strongmen". Neither is overly fond of dissent and they both upset Western leaders on a regular basis.

The rub is that until now they have not been getting along very well.

Putin imposed trade sanctions on Turkey after the latter downed a Russian jet near the Syrian border in November. Since then, the number of Russian tourists to Turkey - a large economic driver - has fallen by 87 percent.

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Erdogan, in the meantime, has seen off a coup and carried out major purges that have left him in danger of being isolated from the West.

The two men will try to build bridges today in St Petersburg, Putin's home town where - history buff alert - a treaty was signed in 1834 between the Ottomans and Russians that eased tensions and reparations stemming from the Russo-Turkish War of 1828-29.

Brexit has gone a bit quiet. Yesterday we had mixed signals - Visa (Xetra: A0NC7B - news) said UK consumers were spending, BDO said business optimism was at a more than three-year low. We are still missing hard data.

Retailers reported this morning that their July sales jumped. While this ran counter to expectations of a Brexit crash, it was pretty much weather-driven. Barclaycard also said that sales it track grew, but at a far slower rate than before.

So, jury still out?

GLOBAL MARKETS

Sterling takes a tumble in Asian trade after a BoE (Shenzhen: 200725.SZ - news) policymaker says could be more QE if the UK economy weakens further after June's Brexit vote. At the same time, data shows British retail sales in July rose 1.9 percent y/y, their biggest rise since January.

The other focus is Chinese inflation data, which showed wholesale price rises slowing. Chinese stocks are up as MSCI (NYSE: MSCI - news) 's main Asia-Pacific stocks index edged up less than 0.1 percent. European stocks, which closed flat on Monday, opened marginally lower. The dollar is slightly stronger against its peers, with the exception of the 0.4 percent gain versus sterling.

Upcoming data/events/themes

* UK July BRC sales +1.9 pct y/y

Europe corp events: Standard Life (LSE: SL.L - news) , SFR, Nokian Tyres (Other OTC: NKRKF - news) , CEZ, Pandora (LSE: 0NQC.L - news) , Lufthansa traffic

* Germany/France June trade

* Swiss July jobless

* UK June trade, industrial/manufacturing output

* Hungary/Czech July inflation

* SAfrica July business confidence

* US Q2 labour costs, productivity

* Brazil June retail sales

* US Treasury auctions 3-year notes

(Editing by London desk)