EU-DIGEST

Labels: EU, Wall Street

Labels: Airbus Tanker, EU, France, US

As he and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton faced the cameras Monday, she spoke of the weekend's election in Iraq. "Greece is the birthplace of democracy, so anytime there's a democratic election anywhere in the world, Greece should get a royalty, Prime Minister," Clinton said.cratic election anywhere in the world, Greece should get a royalty, Prime Minister," Clinton said.

To pull Greece back from the edge, Papandreou has promised to cut the deficit to 3 percent of GDP by 2012. For the U.S. government to make an equivalent cut, it would have to shut down the Pentagon and a few other agencies: the departments of Agriculture, Commerce, Education, Health and Human Services, Energy, Homeland Security, Housing and Urban Development, the Interior, Justice, Labor, State, Transportation, the Treasury, and Veterans Affairs, plus the Environmental Protection Agency and NASA -- and even then we'd come up a few dollars short. Greece had to hit bottom before it acted. The United States seems determined to do the same.

For the complete report: Dana Milbank - From Greece, an economic cautionary tale for the U.S. - washingtonpost.com

Labels: EU, Financial Regulatory Controls, Greece, The Financial Meltdown, USA

Labels: EU, Gaza, Israel Palestine, UN

German Chancellor Angela Merkel said Tuesday that "quick action is needed," calling on the U.S. to "make a gesture" and curb the trades. Greek Prime Minister George Papandreou, in Washington, DC to meet with President Barack Obama, is also calling for curbs on speculation which he blames for making his country's debt crisis worse.

The European Commission threatened to ban "purely speculative naked sales on credit default swaps of sovereign debt" and said it would ask for a similar move globally at the Group of 20 summit of leading and emerging economies in June. Papandreou on Monday compared the practice of selling naked credit default swaps to buying insurance on a neighbor's house and then burning it down to collect.

Note EU-Digest: when is the EU Commission finally going to realize that talking about the issue to the US makes no more sense, because the US has basically caved in to accepting the financial industry and Wall Street's financial manipulations. Instead the EU needs to act immediately and unilaterally ban "purely speculative naked sales on credit default swaps of sovereign debt".

Labels: EU, financial speculators, Greece

Labels: Airbus, Airbus Tanker, EU

Mr. Stegeman, whose report was broadcast on Sunday, said he purchased a bottle of rum, emptied it and refilled it with water before returning it to the store. Then he returned to the same shop and “bought” the refilled bottle, which the shop sealed in a bag with a receipt, allowing him to take it through security checks and on to a plane that landed in London, where he transferred to a flight to Washington. “This was a real big security gap, and the system failed,” said Mr. Stegeman, who was recognized by security staff because of his previous stories where he had posed as a worker for three months and then passed through security unchecked.

“When they recognized me, they had a lot of extra security guards and asked a chief to come and look at me. Still, they didn’t look inside the bag. They looked at the bag, checked the flight number, but that was it,” Mr. Stegeman said.

Labels: Airport Security, EU, Schiphol, The Netherlands

The former Yugoslav republic of Bosnia-Herzegovina doesn’t feature on the list of favourite destinations for British overseas property buyers. Mentions of the capital, Sarajevo, and Mostar, the second city, instead trigger memories of the devastating civil war in the 1990s, which killed 100,000 people and displaced 2m. Fifteen years on, however, a small and intrepid band of pioneering Britons is moving in, attracted by improving transport links, government attempts to boost tourism and property prices half those in neighbouring Croatia.

Among them is Philip Lilleyman, 61, a former colonel from Rotherham, who in 2004 bought a ruined 18th-century Ottoman customs officer’s house in Trebinje, a handsome Venetian-style town straddling the glassy Trebisnjica River, 15 miles inland from the Croatian city of Dubrovnik. Lilleyman was stationed in Bosnia with the British army in the 1990s, and decided to build his dream property there when he retired.

The country remains politically volatile, and since the end of the war has been divided between two entities: the largely Serb Republika Srpska and the mainly Muslim and Croat Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina. A further reminder of its troubled past was provided by the arrest last week at Heathrow airport of the former president, Ejup Ganic, accused over ambushing a Yugoslav army column in Sarajevo. Yet Paul Bradbury, British director of Agent, an estate agency that sells and develops property in Bosnia, insists the country has potential for buyers with mettle. “There are bargains everywhere — city three-beds for £70,000 and rural three-beds at £50,000,” he says.

Labels: Balkans, Real Estate

Labels: EU, Hotel Business

Labels: EMU, EU, Greece, IMF

Labels: Armenian Genocide, China, Turkey, US, US Congress

The Ukip MEP was today summoned to see the European parliament's president, Jerzy Buzek, who demanded that he apologise to Belgium, its people and its former prime minister for his remarks.

When Farage refused, Buzek said he was considering sanctions, including possible suspension from the chamber, against him.

Note EU-Digest: Geert Wilders and Nigel Farage are abusing the liberties free speech provides to them and as such show their contempt for the democratic system they claim to protect. They consider the ability to make personal and public insults about peoples appearances, customs and religion a part of free speech. In that respect it is not much different from the days of Adolf Hitler and his followers, who continuously ridiculed and warned against the Jewish race in the Reichstag (German Parliament), public gatherings and in the press. We all know how that ended...

For the complete report from the Guardian click on this link

Labels: EU, European Parliament, Free Speech, Geert Wilders, Nigel Farage

Labels: EMU, EU, George Soros

Labels: A400 military transport aircraft, Aircraft Industry, EU