There is little evidence beyond speculation that Ireland wants a bailout and even if it did it would not matter a great deal to Merkel.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel said the euro is the glue that holds Europe together, signaling that an Irish bailout may be the price of preserving European unity.
Merkel is “trying to send a clear message that Germany is pro-European, that they are ready to help out Ireland, Portugal and other countries if necessary and they will not put the euro at risk,” Henrik Enderlein, a political economist at the Hertie School of Governance in Berlin, said by phone. She “wants the Irish to take the bailout now to make it clear to everyone that the situation is safe, that markets should calm down.” Read the rest of this entry »
A grand renfort de trompettes, l’Union européenne vient d’adopter une réglementation des hedge funds pour encadrer le risque systémique qu’ils font courir à l’économie. En réalité, observe Jean-Claude Paye, la nouvelle directive est une passoire qui aura un effet inverse à celui qui est annoncé. Son objectif réel est de contrôler sommairement les fonds européens, tout en ouvrant la porte aux fonds états-uniens qui, eux, pourront spéculer sans limite au détriment des Européens.
MOSCOW — Russia’s foreign ministry on Wednesday called for “clemency” for former Iraqi deputy premier Tareq Aziz after he was sentenced to death by hanging for murder and crimes against humanity. Read the rest of this entry »
European Central Bank President Jean-Claude Trichet said that the G-20 made “no particular conclusion” after some members expressed concern about proposals for further quantitative easing in the U.S.
I think the conclusion is that the US plan has been quietly but firmly rejected. What will their next step be? Nice to see a bit of straight speaking from the Germans – they’re becoming increasingly uppety.
The Federal Reserve’s push toward easier monetary policy is the “wrong way” to stimulate growth and may amount to a manipulation of the dollar, German Economy Minister Rainer Bruederle said.
Given the shameful role of the EU in the bombing of Serbia they are not in a great position to sort out the mess they helped to create in the Balkans: Russia and Turkey, however, are. Turkey and their foreign minister Davutoglu are new stars of the international community.
On Monday, Sarkozy, Merkel and Medvedev will sit down to discuss a new European conception of global security. With the current order dysfunctional and inadequate, it is not before time that Russia is included in the discussion, writes Mark Leonard.
The French seaside resort of Deauville came to prominence in the late 19th century – a time of grand hotels and swanky casinos. It was also a time when Europe was divided up between great powers who each jealously guarded their own little patch of Europe, with individual spheres of influence scratching up against each other. It is therefore a fitting location for a summit meeting involving three of the continents’ perennial great powers – Germany, Russia and France (Monday 18th October) – at a time when Europe is once again becoming a multipolar continent. Read the rest of this entry »
The Obama administration’s drive to persuade Nato countries to back its revamped missile defence plans is bringing longstanding tensions over European security into the open, to the potential advantage of Russia and Turkey, the maverick guardians of the EU’s eastern flank.
While the bad news of the Euro crisis makes headlines in the US, we hear next to nothing about a quiet revolution in Europe. The European Union, 27 member nations with a half billion people, has become the largest, wealthiest trading bloc in the world, producing nearly a third of the world’s economy — nearly as large as the US and China combined. Europe has more Fortune 500 companies than either the US, China or Japan.
The embattled Euro has gotten a surprise boost from an unexpected quarter―China. The country with the world’s largest foreign exchange currency reserves, China, has pledged to support Greek debt as well as the Euro in what is clearly a geopolitical decision. In doing so, China has signaled it seeks to prevent the US financial warfare attack on Europe and to play the EU off against the USA in a geopolitical chess game of a fascinating dimension.
The desultory nature of this protest does come across in the video- it does look a bit like resignation. This is understandable because the phase of exuberant consumerism and individualism in Iceland , and in the west as a whole, is over. That will never return, no matter how much we demonstrate and people, on one level, may be grieving for that. The point is not to return to the past but to prevent the descent in a kind of dark age, to stop the rot and to reaffirm certain fundamental values, to rebuild a real economy, real community and solidarity: to defend national sovereignty and democracy. This is a moment to draw the bottom line: none without shelter, none without food, none without the possibility of work. Everything in this crisis is about quantities, usually mind-boggling figures for debt or fraud, but behind just numbers there is a qualitative shift and we will become more positive as we realize the potential in all this.
As proceedings begin against Iceland’s former Prime Minister, Geir Haarde, for the banking crisis of 2008, at least two thousand Icelanders took to the streets in two days of protest this weekend. Iceland joins over a dozen other nations protesting economic measures taken out on the public while banks and large corporations receive bailouts. Class war is on, and it’s gone global.
In These New Times 