EU-DIGEST

France - Nicolas Sarkozy 'Le King of Bling Bling' YouTube video smash hit in France - by Umee Khan

Nicolas Sarkozy, the French president, is caricatured as "Le King of Bling Bling" in an animated YouTube clip which has become a hit in France. In the latest clip, the French leader can be seen surrounded by scantily-clad women, singing "I am the King of Bling-Bling" in the five minute video. At the start of the film, Miss Bruni's voice can be heard before Sarkozy is seen driving through town in a sports car. He is then seen wearing a lot of gold jewellery or "bling", smoking a cigar and clutching several mobile phones - before 'rapping' with glamorous women in a nightclub.

Labels: EU, France, King of Bling Bling, Nicolas Sarkozy

Europeans watch American elections as if they have a stake - because they do - by Steve Kettman

Through much of this year, the big story out of Europe was that people all over the continent were paying an unprecedented amount of attention to the long, intense and forever shifting U.S. presidential campaign.This rapt interest had in part to do with a palpable yearning to turn the page on the Bush years, and in part with excitement over what was widely seen as the likelihood of a boundary-busting candidate taking the White House, whether Hillary Rodham Clinton or Barack Obama. Yet there were voices in the United States who tried to paint this European interest in our presidential succession as somehow prurient, or based only on the celebrity factor, as if European interests were not very much at stake. When Obama brought his campaign here in late July and addressed me and 200,000 others gathered in Berlin's Tiergarten, he made a point of introducing himself as "a proud citizen of the United States, and a fellow citizen of the world." He thus made clear that he saw the destiny and future of Europe and the United States as closely intertwined.

Many in Europe assume that in the aftermath of the economic crisis, the era of unquestioned U.S. economic leadership in the world will have passed. They see the turmoil now roiling the markets as an indication of the untrustworthiness of a U.S. model based so openly on encouraging what we call the profit motive and what others might simply refer to as greed.

Labels: Barack Obama, EU, US elections

Turkey - EU Commission hails Turkey's role in regionalstability - by Elitsa Vucheva

Turkey's role as promoter of regional stability has improved in the last year, Brussels says in a draft report on Turkey and the western Balkans' progress towards the EU, while stressing that Ankara still has a lot to do in a number of areas before being judged fit to join the EU club."Turkey has played a constructive role in its neighbourhood and the wider Middle East through active diplomacy," reads the draft of the annual report seen by EUobserver. "Following the crisis in Georgia, [Turkey] proposed a Caucasus Stability and Co-operation Platform to promote dialogue between the countries of that region. [Turkish] President Gul paid a visit to Yerevan, the first visit ever of a Turkish president since the independence of Armenia. Turkey undertook efforts as a mediator between Israel and Syria and conducted a dialogue with Iran on the nuclear issue," the draft report goes on.

Labels: EU, Turkey

Britain - Court rules Islamic Sharia law discriminatory - by Robert Verkaik

Britain's highest court has criticised Islamic law for discriminating against women after a case in which a mother was forced to flee the Middle East for Britain to protect her son from his abusive father. In a 5-0 ruling, the law lords said that there was no place in sharia for the equal treatment of the sexes. It would be a "flagrant breach" of the European Convention on Human Rights for the Government to remove a woman to Lebanon, where she would lose custody of her son because of sharia-inspired family law.

Sharia was the product of a much-observed religious and cultural tradition, "but by our standards the system is arbitrary because the law permits of no exceptions to its application... It is discriminatory too because it denies women custody of their children after they have reached the age of custodial transfer simply because they are women." Yesterday's decision reversed rulings by the Court of Appeal, the Asylum and Immigration Tribunal and the Home Secretary that returning EM to Lebanon with her son would not violate her right to family life.

Labels: Britain, EU, Sharia law

Somalia Pirates Flourish in a Lawless Nation - by Jeffrey Gettleman

This may be one of the most dangerous towns in Somalia, a place where you can get kidnapped faster than you can wipe the sweat off your brow. But it is also one of the most prosperous.Money changers walk around with thick wads of hundred-dollar bills. Palatial new houses are rising up next to tin-roofed shanties. Men in jail reminisce, with a twinkle in their eyes, about their days living like kings. This is the story of Somalia’s booming, not-so-underground pirate economy. The country is in chaos, countless children are starving and people are killing one another in the streets of Mogadishu, the capital, for a handful of grain. But one particular line of work — piracy — seems to be benefiting quite openly from all this lawlessness and desperation. This year, Somali officials say, pirate profits are on track to reach a record $50 million, all of it tax free. More than 75 vessels have been attacked this year, far more than any other year in recent memory. About a dozen have been set upon in the past month alone, including a Ukrainian freighter packed with tanks, antiaircraft guns and other heavy weaponry, which was brazenly seized in September. People in Garoowe, a town south of Boosaaso, describe a certain high-rolling pirate swagger. Flush with cash, the pirates drive the biggest cars, run many of the town’s businesses — like hotels — and throw the best parties, residents say. Fatuma Abdul Kadir said she went to a pirate wedding in July that lasted two days, with nonstop dancing and goat meat, and a band flown in from neighboring Djibouti. “It was wonderful,” said Ms. Fatuma, 21. “I’m now dating a pirate.”

Note EU-Digest: "Its is incredible that with all the world's powerful navies, no one has been able to get rid of these pirate punks."

Labels: Pirates, Somalia

The Cordoba Great Mosque

For more reports related to Europe click on this link

Europe's Muslim Legacy

In a fascinating book, God's Crucible: Islam and the making of Modern Day Europe, by David Levering Lewis one will quickly agree with the author that it took two ingredients to make Europeans believe in themselves as the center of civilization. One was the creation of the vast Holy Roman Empire by Charlemagne. The other was the development of the Muslim culture in what is now known as the region of Andalusia, Spain. The Arabs called it al-Andalus with the Great Mosque as the most striking physical example of this Muslim foothold in Europe. What probably was even more impressive, leaving a lasting mark on Europe were the Muslims intellectual and cultural achievements. Hundreds of mosques, thousands of palaces, scores of libraries were build in Córdoba alone. Towards the end of the ninth century, those libraries had acquired hundreds of thousands of manuscripts. Nothing else on the continent of Europe could compare. Just imagine the university of Córdoba was established more than one hundred years before the one in Bologna, Italy, considered today as the first European university.

Al-Andalus was already a truly regional cosmopolitan agglomeration of cities, when the rest of Europe was still a feuding environment of country estates and small towns. Towards the end of the millennium, Córdoba had a population of more than 90,000, many times the size of any town in the territories occupied by Charlemagne. Those Andalusian cities also became a great ethnic melting pot of Jews, Muslims, Christians, Arabs, Berbers, Germanic, Slavs, and countless other cultures. These eventually spread throughout the continent and transformed a barbaric Europe into a more enlightened and modern European society.

Maybe Europe's far right politicians, including Geert Wilders in the Netherlands, French "Front National" leader Jean-Marie le Pen and Belgian far-right politician Filip Dewinte should take the time to read God's Crucible: Islam and the making of Modern Day Europe, by David Levering Lewis. Who knows, they might realize al-Andalus showed Europe that what must empower man should always be compassion not hate.

Labels: Andalusia, Christianity, Cordoba, EU, Europe, Filip Fewinte, Geert Wilders, Islam, Jean-Marie le Pen, Spain

CHRISTIAN-MUSLIM MARRIAGES

Gé Speelman of Utrecht University in the Netherlands spoke on Christian-Muslim marriages during the Graz European Ecumenical Assembly in 1997. By clicking on the above link you can read a shortened version of her paper. The Muslim partner is often confronted with what most people around him think is natural, obvious, self-evident; he/her is the other, the one who has to prove him/her self. Many Muslim partners find they have to defend their faith against attacks which associate Islam with intolerance, backwardness and irrationality. In reaction, many Muslims become very much aware of their cultural and religious heritage. As one Muslim man said: “I would never have known so much about Islam if I had stayed at home and married an Egyptian girl.”

Another factor is that interfaith partners are seen as representatives of their communities. The Turkish Muslim represents the “terrible Turks” who have shaped the history of so many Eastern European countries. The German wife is the “imperialist European” whose community has been responsible for so much repression and bloodshed. Many problems in an interfaith marriage are exactly the same as those experienced by many other couples. But in their case, family and friends are looking out for problems; when they occur, they are defined as arising from differences in culture. A Dutch woman said she did not want to recognize the serious communication problem in her relationship because she was determined to prove to those who said it would never work that her marriage was fantastically successful. The partners had put off talking about their problems until it was too late.

Loved ones want to be more than merely “that Christian”, or “that Muslim”. Of course, they are also “a Christian” and “a Muslim” – much of what we are ties up with our religious traditions. German theologian Ulrich Dietzfelbinger, who described, in a lecture he gave in 1989, his relationship with his Turkish Muslim wife. He describes his tendency to reduce the differences in their beliefs to minor points, the pull to reduce their faith to the lowest common denominator. “After all, we both believe in Almighty God.” In the end, he recognizes that this way of reducing their differences is a way of denying them, leaving both partners with very little faith at all. What he learns is that one should not try to make the other the same as oneself. With new eyes he looks at the doctrine of incarnation. It is strange that God has community with a human being (and therefore with all human beings) in such a way that God is in his/her utmost being qualified by that humanity, while at the same time human beings are not deified and God remains God. Is there not in this strange incarnation something analogous to his marriage, where only love is the guarantor that he respects his partner as being inalienably other, different, and yet at one with himself? Maybe we should just let this question stand.

Labels: Christian, EU, Marriage, Musllim, Religion

Embarrassing loss for Real Madrid and scare after Ruben De La Red faints on the field

Third-division Real Union upset Real Madrid 3-2 in the Copa del Rey on Thursday, continuing the Spanish league champion's poor record in the knockout competition it hasn't won since 1993. Juan Dominguez scored twice and Inaki Goikoetxea netted the winner for Real Union. There was a scare in the 14th minute when Madrid's Spain midfielder Ruben De La Red fell as he walked away from the Real Union penalty area. De La Red was carried off on a stretcher after being treated for two minutes. Madrid medical chief Carlos Diez said De La Red suffered a sudden fainting fit brought on by exertion and was not in danger.
The 23-year-old Spain international was taken to hospital and will spend the night there as a precaution. Diez said De La Red has undergone tests which have produced normal results and he was expected to be released on Friday.

Labels: EU, Ruben De La Red, Soccer, Spain

Britain - Shop till you drop: Australian developer launches Europe's largest shopping complex in West London

Australia's Westfield Group has opened the biggest shopping centre in Europe, spending euro 2.08 billion (US $ 2.65b) on the project in West London. It is to be proceeded by an even bigger development by Westfield at the 2012 Olympic Site in East London. The timing is unfortunate given the fact that Britain is on the brink of recession and that consumer spending it set to fall in the next 12 months after a decade of solid growth.It is to be proceeded by an even bigger development by Westfield at the 2012 Olympic Site in East London.

Labels: Britain, Consumerism, EU, Retailing

Snow blankets London for Global Warming debate • by Andrew Orlowski

Snow fell as the House of Commons debated Global Warming yesterday - the first October fall in the metropolis since 1922. The Mother of Parliaments was discussing the Mother of All Bills for the last time, in a marathon six hour session. In order to combat a projected two degree centigrade rise in global temperature, the Climate Change Bill pledges the UK to reduce its carbon dioxide emissions by 80 per cent by 2050. The bill was receiving a third reading, which means both the last chance for both democratic scrutiny and consent.

Labels: Britain, EU, Global warming

Political Economy: Zero Bound - by John Cranford

In the past few months, Bernanke has deployed the central bank’s powers in extraordinary and flexible ways to flood the banking system with cash. At latest count the Fed has created at least a half-dozen new lending programs for institutions that aren’t its traditional borrowers and broadened its lending to ordinary banks. The amount of credit outstanding from the Fed is well in excess of $500 billion. That’s billion, with a “b.” A year ago, it was $500 million, with an “m.”

The next year or two will be trying as the Fed navigates yet another expanse of uncharted water. Bernanke has proved adept so far at finding creative ways to use the Fed’s resources, and it’s safe to expect him to continue doing so. But the days of just moving interest rates up and down to steer the economy are long past.

Labels: Interest rates, US Economy

Europeans need a ‘British’ navy, not a ‘German’ army

Over the weekend, the new British Defence Secretary, John Hutton, said in an interview in The Sunday Times that the time had come to consider the creation and mobilisation of a European army. He said the idea was simply ‘pragmatic’, and even went so far as to declare that while there were many anti-Europeans who opposed the idea in the United Kingdom, they were either ‘pathetic’ or at a loss with the times.

Labels: EU, Military

US Economic Meltdown: Economy flashes recession signal; GDP down at 0.3% rate

The government says the economy shrank in the third quarter as consumers cut back spending by the biggest amount in 28 years. It was the strongest signal yet the country is facing recession. The broadest barometer of the nation's economic health, gross domestic product, shrank at a 0.3% annual rate in the July-September quarter, the Commerce Department said. It marked the worst showing since the economy contracted at a 1.4% pace in third quarter 2001, when the nation was suffering through its last recession.The deterioration reflects a sharp retrenchment by consumers, whose spending accounts for the largest chunk of national economic activity. Consumers ratcheted back their spending at a 3.1% annual rate in the third quarter, the most since second quarter 1980, when the country was in the grip of recession.

Labels: US Economy

Barack Obama lead slipping per newest national polls - by Joe Dwinell

It’s scary times for Democrats as the latest polls show Barack Obama’s lead slipping to a frightening three points over John McCain. The Gallup daily poll has Obama up 49-46 percent over McCain, as the race “tightens.” The Rasmussen daily poll also shows a 3-point lead for Obama, the first time McCain has been this close in more than a month.

Labels: Barack Obama, US elections

Alternative Energy - Turkey encourages Renewable energy

A draft of a new law encouraging renewable energy usage in Turkey has been presented to Parliament as part of a move to decrease Turkey's energy dependence. According to the draft, prepared by Soner Aksoy, the head of Parliament's Energy and Industry Commission, the state will guarantee that it will purchase electricity generated from renewable energy plants established within the next eight years. The state will buy electricity from renewable energy plants at higher rates than the average wholesale price arranged by the Energy Market Regulatory Agency (EPDK). "The state will pay 5-18 cents per kilowatt hour for the electricity generated by the renewable energy plants until 2016," Aksoy noted, saying that this was a short-term incentive package and that such applications to encourage entrepreneurs would continue. For the first five years, the state will pay 5 cents per kilowatt hour for hydroelectric energy, 6 cents for wind, 7 for geothermal, 14 for biomass and 18 for solar energy.

As part of the incentives in the draft, state land will be made available for the establishment of renewable energy plants. The General Directorate of Electrical Power Resources Survey and Development Administration (EİE) will convey suitable construction plans to the state, which will allocate land to the project. New public buildings will be constructed in a form that will harness renewable energy as efficiently as possible.

Labels: Alternative Energy, Turkey

Oil giants try to polish image before latest fat profit gusher - by Elizabeth Douglass

The world's best-known oil companies are pouring on the charm as they get ready to parade another round of fat profits before a public that feels suddenly poorer. The spotlight will shine on Exxon today and Chevron on Friday. Royal Dutch Shell already reported a 71 per cent rise in profits to euro 8.5 billion ($10.9 billion/£6.54 billion) and still counting. The world's second largest oil company's steep rise in profits follows a 148 per cent increase reported by its rival, BP, earlier this week due to record oil prices over the summer.

In 1993, the five biggest publicly traded oil companies — Exxon Mobil, Royal Dutch Shell, BP, Chevron and ConocoPhillips — spent 39 percent of their operating cash flow on development projects, 14 percent on exploration and only 1 percent on buying back their own stock. In 2007, they spent 34 percent on development, 6 percent on exploration and 34 percent on stock buybacks, according to a study co-written by Jaffe. Bottom line: when oil companies spend their money, it's less about you and me than about their shareholders. In many respects, industry experts note, what's good for Big Oil's bottom line isn't necessarily good for Joe Q. Jetta.

Labels: oil companies, Profit

"What Entrepreneurs Need to Know about Social Networking"

Everyone who has been keeping up to date on the latest marketing trends across corporations around the world, and up and down the organizational ladders, are talking about the benefits of social networking to increase their exposure and sales. It's a major development that has been growing rapidly during the past few years. People are exchanging information about everything under the sun via a variety of platforms on the internet and you can be part of it or not, because it happens with or without you. It's your choice whether you want to participate or ignore this technological tidal wave.

Labels: Business Development, Social Networking

Race Heats Up: China, India, Europe push ahead as U.S. program slows to a crawl - by Mark Kaufman

China conducted its first spacewalk last month. The European Space Agency is building a roving robot to land on Mars. India recently launched a record 10 satellites into space on a single rocket.Although the United States remains dominant in most space-related fields -- and owns half the military satellites currently orbiting Earth -- experts say that the nation's superiority is diminishing, and many other nations are expanding their civilian and commercial space capabilities at a far faster pace. "We spent many tens of billions of dollars during the Apollo era to purchase a commanding lead in space over all nations on Earth," said NASA Administrator Michael D. Griffin, who said that his agency's budget is down by 20 percent in inflation-adjusted terms since 1992. "We've been living off the fruit of that purchase for 40 years and have not ... chosen to invest at a level that would preserve that commanding lead."

In a recent in-depth study of international space competitiveness, Futron, a technology consulting firm in Bethesda, Md., found that the globalizing of space is unfolding more broadly and quickly than most Americans realize. "Systemic and competitive forces threaten U.S. space leadership," the company president, Joseph Fuller Jr., concluded.

Labels: China, ESA, India, Space Exploration, US

Eurofighter refueling from Airbus A310
For the complete report from FlightGlobal click on this link

Germany launches Eurofighter refueling trials with A310 - by Craigg Hole

ADS has conducted the first of nine planned test flights leading to the certification of the Eurofighter combat aircraft to undergo in-flight refueling from the German air force's Airbus A310 multi-role tanker transports. Conducted from EADS Military Air Systems' Manching facility near Munich in late October, the first test lasted for about 5h and employed two of Germany's instrumented production aircraft.

Labels: Airbus Tanker, Aircraft Industry, EU, EuroFighter

"Slump", the new world order - by D Ravi Kanth

Darkening recessionary clouds are steadily enveloping country after country. While the mayhem caused by Wall Street continues unabated, its impact on the real economy is rather difficult to fathom.The underlying reality is finance played havoc with the real economy that produces goods and services for people to consume and survive. Those who depended on the production of these goods and services have not only suffered via depressed real wages during the last 30 years when the boom took the incomes of those in the financial sector to stratospheric levels.Those erstwhile heroes of "irrational exuberance" fame, like Alan Greenspan, are already admitting the "flaw[s]" and "mistake[s]" in their assessment of the credit boom and the housing bubble they unleashed on the world economy. Similarly, the pressure is mounting to put some of the high-profile Wall Street actors behind bars. Clearly, there is an urgent need for naming and shaming of all those who are responsible for creating this gigantic mess.

The person responsible for this drift towards unilateralism is none other than US President George W Bush. So, when he summons world leaders from 20 countries to "advance common understanding of the causes of the [financial] crash" and prepare "a common set of principles for the reform of the regulatory and institutional regimes for the world's financial sectors", it is hardly surprising there is a deep cynicism as to what this will achieve. Amid conflicting interests around the table next month in Washington , it will be too much to expect any radical policy prescriptions. For all we know, Karl Marx -- whose Das Kapital is selling more copies in Germany this year due to the financial plague -- might prove right once again when he said history repeats itself twice, "the first time as tragedy, the second as farce"!

Labels: US, World Economy

The way all the bubbles burst -- by Liu Junhong

"Back in the 1990s the US staged a rousing production known as "the new economy" very much to the envy of the whole world. One of the prime reasons for this success was the support from an extensive and very sophisticated financial market, which enabled emerging enterprises to go public anytime they wanted with the lowest possible cost guaranteed. This is also one of the fundamental forces that drove Japan's financial system reform at that time.Nowadays, however, the system of direct financing is in a shambles and enterprises have to rely on the old ways for direct financing by borrowing mostly from banks. The problem is that the crisis is spreading deeper into the banking industry, crippling the banking market as well. The two pillar systems of securities and banking are both in big trouble, causing the whole financial system to go haywire.Back to where it all began, the root of the US financial crisis has stemmed from the loopholes in the US-led "financial capitalism" format, with the bursting of "the real estate bubble" serving as the fuse. The "reverse asset effect" created by the bursting of the real estate bubble directly caused the "bursting of the consumption bubble".

It is widely known that the biggest characteristic of the US economy is consumption in overdrive, to the point that people would rather bury themselves in debts than cut back spending. As of August this year, the total value of individual consumption in the US accounted for over 70 percent of the country's GDP. If that is not a pillar of the US economy, I don't know what is".

Labels: World Economy

"New Europe' fears losing privileged status with US

No matter who becomes the next US president, Eastern European countries are afraid that the privileged relations they have enjoyed under the Bush administration could be lost. EurActiv's network in Central Europe and Turkey contributed to this report. The sentiment in Eastern European capitals is that the next US President will prioritzse repairing relations with Western European capitals, which have suffered under neo-conservative US rule, and that Eastern European countries – despite being America's strongest allies under Bush – could find themselves somewhat neglected. "

Labels: EU, New Europe, US elections

ECB put up more cash, Euro 12b (US 15.1B) to Denmark

The ECB, the central bank for the 15-nation euro zone -- of which Denmark is not a member -- said the 12 billion euro ($15.1 billion) swap will remain in effect as long as needed. It was done with the goal of increasing the amount of cash in short-term euro money markets. The move will make it easier for Denmark, whose krone currency is pegged to the euro, to get access to euros. The ECB provided similar moves for Hungary and Switzerland earlier this month. The swap will provide euros to the Danish bank in exchange for Danish kronor and should lower the exchange rate for euros in Denmark.

Labels: Denmark, ECB, EU

Reshaping World’s Financial System Now a Must - by Andrew C. Schneider

The West knows it can’t set the terms as it has in the past. That’s why the biggest developing nations were invited to join the G-8 in Washington on Nov. 15 for the first in a series of summits that will run well into 2009. Remaking the G-8 into something closer to the G-20 also appears likely. A large part of the reason the G-8 has been seen as increasingly irrelevant in recent years has been its exclusion of so many of the world's new stars.

Most of the economies poised to join the IMF's leadership are each worth $1 trillion or more. Two, China and Brazil, are already larger than some current members. The Group of 20, whose full membership President Bush invited to the Nov. 15 summit, comprises the G-8 countries as well as China, Brazil, India, South Korea, Mexico, Argentina, Australia, Indonesia, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, Turkey and the European Union (EU).

Note EU-Digest: "contrary to what the above Kiplinger report indicates, the major hurdle to establish stricter international regulatory rules will be to overcome the US reluctance to allow more transparency and controls over their own financial system. They have historically opposed most forms of regulatory safeguards when it appears to tamper with their own laissez-faire style of capitalism. Unfortunately we recently have seen what kind of havoc this has created in the world financial system."

Labels: G20, World Economy

Switzerland is the second most competitive economy, behind the US, says the World Economic Forum

The competitiveness of Switzerland's economy has again been ranked second only to that of the United States in a World Economic Forum (WEF) annual survey. WEF awarded Switzerland top marks for innovation and the quality of infrastructure in its 2007/8 Global Competitiveness Report. But the country was held back by the relatively small size of its economy. It is the second year in a row that the Swiss have come runners-up in the poll of 12,000 business leaders, conducted by the Geneva-based organisation.

WEF asked respondents to rank 134 countries based on factors that promoted economic growth, such as the availability of talent, transparency of governance, infrastructure and openness to innovation.

Labels: competitiveness, Switzerland

Fraudulent Practices on Wallstreet USA: Jim Cramer brags about manipulating stock prices when he was a Wall Street trader

Jim Cramer, the boisterous host of CNBC’s “Mad Money,” recently bragged in an interview about manipulating stock prices when he was a Wall Street trader, proving all too directly — and stupidly, I might add — that investment professionals profit off the backs of the naïve investing public.In the Web interview with TheStreet.com's executive editor Aaron Task, which is on YouTube and has been blasted all around the Internet, Cramer gave advice on how to keep a profit on a short-position by driving a stock price down. He gave a number of different examples of manipulation, which he admitted might be illegal, but said it didn't really matter because "the Securities and Exchange Commission never understands this."

And that is the sad point of Cramer's comments and this column: The people who are supposed to guard and protect the public's trust in the markets are letting the people down. They simply aren't doing their jobs effectively. For years the SEC tried to pin something, in a very public manner, on Cramer. But they could never really make anything stick; he ran circles around them. There are now thousands of hedge fund managers playing tricks just like the old Cramer used to when he was running a hedge fund. And regulators are looking on without making a call. And the public still continues to invest like they know better. And hedge fund managers continue to laugh all the way to the bank.

Note EU-Digest: "one day the market goes down 6oo points and the next day it goes up 600, with screaming "know it all" CNBC reporters hyping-up the public This has nothing to do with the investors money, but all about making a select group of Wall Street traders very rich. This fraudulent activity will never stop without very strict regulations on Wall Street".

Labels: CNBC, Fraud on Wall Street, Jim Cramer, US Economy, Wall Street

Iran opens trade center in Netherlands

The Mehr News Agency quoted TPOI Director for Foreign Branches Affairs Hamid Zadbum as saying that a number of Iranian and Dutch traders as well as Iran-Netherlands Cultural Council members also attended the inaugural ceremony. The two sides expressed hope that the trade center would pave the way for the two-way trade in the long run, Zadbum said, adding, they announced their full-fledged support of any activity which would enhance bilateral economic and commercial relations.

Labels: EU, Iran, Netherlands, Trade

Dutch say unlocked bike not enticement to steal

The Dutch Supreme Court has rejected the appeal of a bicycle thief who stole a decoy bike planted by police. Lawyers for the convicted thief — a repeat offender who was sentenced to 22 days in jail — had argued that leaving the bike unlocked amounted to entrapment. But the five-judge court has rejected that, saying the man wasn't personally targeted.Tuesday's court ruling said placing an unlocked decoy bike didn't make the suspect do anything he had not intended doing beforehand.

Labels: EU, Judicial System, justice, Netherlands

Britain - At this rate, it won't be long before we're joining the euro - by Steve Richards

The calls for a significant cut in interest rates get louder. In the US there is speculation that before very long rates will be close to zero. The long list of those keeping their fingers crossed here that the Bank of England will deliver a headline-grabbing reduction next week includes home-owners with big mortgages, small businesses, big businesses, the Chancellor of the Exchequer and the Prime Minister.

One wonders how long it will be before a traumatised senior minister thinks the following: "This wretched independence for the Bank is the worst of all worlds, yet it would make matters even worse to revert to the old arrangements. Therefore the least risky course is to join the euro". If the arrangements aimed at stabilising the currency are now a source of turbulence, and a return to the old system would cause even more storms, there is no obvious alternative option. That great sleeping issue, Britain's membership of the euro, will be waking soon.

Labels: Britain, EU, euro

US elections - The Republican shipwreck

The modern conservative movement is dying in front of our eyes, and its death throes aren't pretty. As John McCain heads for likely defeat, the GOP is eating itself. Right-wing politicians and pundits who never criticized Bush in eight years are suddenly jumping ship like rats, while bitter-end loyalists angrily accuse them of being "pathetically opportunistic." After months of veering from one tactic to the next, McCain has finally settled on one message for his campaign, but it's absurd: claiming that the party whose signature is tax cuts for the rich is really on the side of Joe the Plumber. Meanwhile, 3.1 million real Joe the Plumbers across America are sending Barack Obama hundreds of millions of dollars, a torrent of cash that is helping to flush the GOP down the national toilet. Right-wing hacks like Palin and Minn. Rep. Michele Bachman respond by doing the only thing they know how to do -- attack, demonize and divide.

Labels: John McCain, Republicans, US elections

Financial crisis builds Polish euro-entry momentum - by Philippa Runner

The financial crisis is building momentum for Poland to swiftly join the EU's single currency on 1 January 2012, with a positive political climate for the euro also developing in the Nordic states. "The world crisis has shown that it's safer to be with the strong, among the strong and to have influence on the decisions of the strong," Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk said on Monday (27 October), adding that his pro-euro policy is "not based on any orthodoxy, any ideology" of deepening EU integration.

Note EU-Digest: "being a part of the European Union also means carrying some of the burdens and not just profiting from its benefits. A stronger, integrated and unified Europe is an important part of keeping the euro strong. You can't have your cake and eat it too Mr. Tusk".

Labels: EU, euro, European Integration, Poland

The Vote Grab: How the Republicans stole the 2004 election - by Peter Tatchell

Will next week's US presidential vote be free and fair? Based on the conduct of the last election, possibly not. The 2004 election was marred by vote-fixing that would disgrace a banana republic. Four years later, few new safeguards have been implemented to prevent a re-run of the voter exclusion and ballot tampering of 2004.This is the conclusion of Robert F Kennedy Jr, civil rights lawyer and nephew of JFK. In one of the most important pieces of investigative journalism in recent years, published in Rolling Stone magazine in 2006, he revealed how voting irregularities in 2004 were enough to steal the presidency for the Republicans.

Labels: Fraud, John McCain, Republicans, US elections

French minister opposes Georgia, Ukraine entry to NATO

France's minister for European affairs on Wednesday said he was opposed to Georgia and Ukraine entering the NATO military alliance for now because it would not benefit Europe. "I think that it is not the right time for membership for Georgia and Ukraine," Jean-Pierre Jouyet said on the sidelines of a European Parliament session. "It is not in the interests of Europe or its relations with Russia." NATO foreign ministers are in December set to once again examine Georgia and Ukraine's candidacy for membership, strongly denounced by Moscow. While Jouyet said he was expressing his personal opinion, he in fact confirmed a view repeatedly expressed by Paris.

Along with Germany, France has been reluctant to take the two ex-Soviet states into the alliance and draw the wrath of Russia, which has made it clear it would regard such a move as something close to a hostile action by NATO. Note EU-Digest: this is a wise move. Letting these countries in might be of interest to the US government, it certainly is not in the interest of the EU's relationship with Russia.

Labels: EU, France, Georgia, Ukraine

US - Politics in the Age of George the Great - by Eddie J.Girdner

It has been eight years since the putsch in Florida by the neoconservative Storm Troopers stole the presidential election and installed George W. Bush on the White House Throne. The dark days had begun and these dark days have not yet ended.Indeed, it is difficult to think of any quarter, domestic or international, left untouched by the havoc brought to fruition in the Age of George the Great. Who would have thought, who could have imagined that such inordinate talent dwelt ensconced inside the scull of the former Governor of Texas? It is the great ineffable mystery of the Age of George the Great, who we have observed as the “Eighth Wonder of the World”. How do we unravel this inscrutable mystery?

Indeed, the trillion dollars for the two wars had been funded mostly by dollars the US did not have in supplementary off-budget funding. The national debt ceiling was raised to $ 11.3 trillion as the banks began to give up the ghost. George the Great had not got the Hogs out of the Dollar Creek. The Dollar Creek was so crowded that the dollars dried up, the banks collapsed and then the stock markets began to crash. As an experiment in neo-liberalism in the real world it was instructive. ‘One capitalist kills many.” Marx was certainly right about that. A herd of them can easily collapse the entire global financial system.

Labels: John McCain, Republican Party, US elections

The irresistible rise of renewables - by Jennifer Bollen

Clean energy deals are up more than 50% on last year. Tumbling oil prices have caused some to question the continued attraction of renewable energy in the face of more affordable oil, but private equity firms remain bullish about the sector’s prospects on the evidence of last week. Portuguese buyout firm Magnum Capital Industrial Partners agreed the biggest renewable energy deal in the last 13 years last week, with a €1.2bn ($1.6bn) acquisition of wind energy assets owned by Enersis, a portfolio company of Australian investment bank and infrastructure specialist Babcock & Brown. The transaction confirmed the sector’s rise in popularity during the credit crisis, overtaking an $895m (696m) acquisition of German wind turbine manufacturer RE Power by Citigroup Private Equity, the buyout arm of Citigroup, last year which had been the biggest renewable energy deal since data provider Dealogic’s records began. It took total deal values in the renewable energy sector to $2.4bn so far this year, up from about $1bn in the same period last year, according to Dealogic.

Labels: Alternative Energy

Labels: EU, Poverty

Sarkozy Wants to Lead Euro Zone Until 2010

French President Nicolas Sarkozy reportedly said he wants to become president of the euro zone countries once his term as EU heads expires at the end of the year.According to the French daily Le Monde on Wednesday, Oct. 22, several advisors to the French president have confirmed this strategy. Sarkozy's ambition is based on his firm conviction that the crisis in Georgia and the financial crisis both demonstrated that Europe was in need of a strong leader. According to Le Monde, Sarkozy believes that without such an individual at the helm, the EU would never have been able to negotiate with Moscow or decide on an effective plan to rescue European banks. However, it seems unlikely that other EU countries will go along with the idea. In an interview published Wednesday in the French business daily La Tribune, German Finance Minister Michael Glos said the proposal of a single economic governance of euro zone countries was "not suitable for resolving the current problems."

Note EU-Digest: "the idea certainly has merit, or at least a compromise of the idea, whereby the 15 euro-zone leaders elect a Chairman to speak on behalf of the group".

Labels: EU, France, Sarkozy