Europe

European Union gives Latvia final OK to join eurozone

"'Yes we are joining the euro as of January 1 next year,' said Prime Minister Valdis Dombrovskis, adding that it was 'good news not only for Latvia but also for Europe and the eurozone.' Asked whether he had any qualms about joining the single currency at such a difficult time, Vilks acknowledged that 'those hard times will last several years at least'. 'We trust Europe and we trust the euro,' he said later, adding that he hoped Latvia would prove to be one of the 'best performers' in the single currency zone. Latvia has been the EU’s fastest-growing economy, having posted GDP growth of more than five percent year-on-year in both 2011 and 2012." Continue reading →

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Currency Controls in Cyprus Increase Worry About Euro System

"On a visit to Athens this year, Marios Loucaides, a Cypriot businessman, saw an apartment he liked in the heart of the Greek capital and decided to buy it. However, Mr. Loucaides discovered that the euros he had on deposit here in Nicosia, the capital, could not be moved to Greece, even though the two countries share the same currency and, in theory at least, the same free movement of capital.The apartment deal collapsed. And so, too, did Mr. Loucaides’s belief that Europe has a common currency. Tangled in restrictions imposed in March as part of a bailout for the country’s ailing banks, a euro in Cyprus is no longer the same as one in France, Germany or Greece." Continue reading →

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French business leaders lash out at Francois Hollande

"The chief executives of top firms including Peugeot Citroën, EADS, Sanofi and Publicis signed a joint letter to Les Echos, complaining that France is being suffocated by high taxes and an over-regulated system that is no longer fit for purpose. The group called for a radical shake-up of labour markets to let each firm set its own working hours, and a 'coherent' energy policy to bring down costs from current ruinous levels. Gas prices are three times as high as in the US. Christophe de Margerie, head of the energy giant Total, said France’s outdated welfare model is draining the economy’s life-blood." Continue reading →

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Ignoring Drug Advisors, Britain Bans Khat

"In a written ministerial statement to Parliament last week. British Home Secretary Theresa May announced that her government was banning khat, a mild stimulant plant from the Horn of Africa widely used by inhabitants of the region, some of whom have emigrated to United Kingdom and other Western countries and brought their habit with them. In doing so, May went directly against the advice of the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs (ACMD), the public body charged with making recommendations on the control of drugs. " Continue reading →

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France will no longer cut off Internet for illegal downloading

"The French Ministry of Culture announced Tuesday that people who illegally download copyrighted works off the Internet no longer have to fear being disconnected for a year under the nation’s controversial anti-piracy law, formally named the High Authority of Diffusion of the Art Works and Protection of the Rights on the Internet (HADOPI). The loss of HADOPI’s disconnection provision is more than just a victory for French socialists — it’s a defeat for U.S. industry groups, which fiercely lobbied prior French administrations to adopt harsh punitive measures against anyone who shares copyrighted content." Continue reading →

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Berlin Wall to host exhibit on the world’s tensest borders

"'It’s always a problem — in November I hung a portrait of the US wall in Mexico here and an American came by and shouted at me, ‘You can’t compare this.’ But for me, it doesn’t matter if it’s a religious, national or economic conflict — the idea that you have a problem and you can solve it by building a wall has simply been obsolete since 1989.' Wiedenhoefer said the bleak, often heavily militarised ramparts against illegal immigration, like the US fence on the Mexican border and around the Spanish enclaves of Ceuta and Melilla in Morocco, or along religious lines such as in Baghdad and Belfast, were tragic testaments." Continue reading →

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The Strange Case of Lagarde, Influence Peddling and the IMF

"Christine Lagarde, one of the most powerful women in the world as head of the International Monetary Fund, is facing acute embarrassment after a letter in which she urged former French President Nicolas Sarkozy to 'use me' was found during a police raid on her Paris flat. Ms. Lagarde, as head of the International Monetary Fund, is commonly held to be one of the most powerful women in the world. But as this leaked letter shows, she is just as encumbered by alliances as anyone else, and her success may lay in her ability to convince others that rather than being a leader, she can be counted on as a good apparatchik." Continue reading →

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Spaniards Fight to Get $10.3 Billion In Savings Back From Bank Investment Schemes

"Today, Mr. López is one of about 300,000 Spaniards who, in the midst of a brutal recession, have seen their life savings virtually wiped out in what critics call a deceptive and possibly fraudulent sales campaign by banks that were threatened by the implosion of Spain’s property market. Many, like Mr. López, are older and lack formal education, and were easily misled when bank officials hit on the idea of raising capital and cleaning debts off their books by getting people with savings accounts to invest in their banks instead. oon, they came to understand that they had purchased complex financial products, originally designed for sophisticated investors." Continue reading →

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Obama (Scut Farkus), Europe (Grover Dill), and Snowden (Ralphie)

"It is obvious that nobody in the highest levels of government thought through the implications of the bonehead decision of the advisor who decided that the government was going to get Edward Snowden off that plane. It never occurred to him that Snowden was not on the plane. It never occurred to him that toadies in Western Europe would resent the fact that they were exposed as toadies. Finally, he never figured out that this would enable two near-communists and the anti-American President of the number-four oil-exporting nation to the United States the opportunity to offer asylum to Snowden, when they had not had the courage to do this prior." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingObama (Scut Farkus), Europe (Grover Dill), and Snowden (Ralphie)

Germany defends ‘strictly legal’ cooperation with NSA

"Angela Merkel's government said on Monday that its cooperation with American intelligence was fully regulated by strict legal guidelines after a magazine reported that the U.S. National Security Agency was in close cahoots with German spies. Germany's opposition demanded that her government explain how much it knew about U.S. surveillance tactics ahead of talks with Washington about the NSA. Der Spiegel's report that the NSA works with Germany and other Western states on a 'no questions asked'-basis undermines the chancellor's indignant talk of 'Cold War' tactics revealed by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden." Continue reading →

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