Al-Qaeda’s North African branch is holding the governor of an Algerian desert region hostage, sources say – @Reuters
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uk.reuters.com by editor
The ECB Meets to Draw Up Additional Debt Solution Directives
EFSF Says They Have Enough Money to Stem the Debt Crisis
The IMF, EU, & World Bank Will Need More Money and the Kitchen Sink to Stem Debt Crisis
Oil Back to $100 as Saudi’s Target the Mark
The Euro Gains as Spanish & French Yields Fall
The Euro climbed on good news for Europe. Despite the S&P’s downgrade of France yields fell.
Comments »China’s GDP Expands More Than Expected; Markets Hopeful of Easing
LLOYD’S OF LONDON IN FOR SOME BITTER TEA TIME, INDEUD
From @BreakingNews Twitter Feed:
Market sources: The Costa Concordia could cost maritime insurers Lloyds of London up to $1bn, the largest insurance loss from a single wreck
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Why Is ‘Europe’ a Dirty Word?
Published: January 14, 2012
QUELLE horreur! One of the uglier revelations about President Obama emerging from the Republican primaries is that he is trying to turn the United States into Europe.
“He wants us to turn into a European-style welfare state,” warned Mitt Romney. Countless versions of that horrific vision creep into Romney’s speeches, suggesting that it would “poison the very spirit of America.”
Rick Santorum agrees, fretting that Obama is “trying to impose some sort of European socialism on the United States.”
Who knew? Our president is plotting to turn us into Europeans. Imagine:
It’s a languid morning in Peoria, as a husband and wife are having breakfast. “You’re sure you don’t want eggs and bacon?” the wife asks. “Oh, no, I prefer these croissants,” the husband replies. “They have a lovely je ne sais quoi.”
He dips the croissant into his café au-lait and chews it with zest. “What do you want to do this evening?” he asks. “Now that we’re only working 35 hours a week, we have so much more time. You want to go to the new Bond film?”
“I’d rather go to a subtitled art film,” she suggests. “Or watch a pretentious intellectual television show.”
“I hear Kim Kardashian is launching a reality TV show where she discusses philosophy and global politics with Bernard-Henri Lévy,” he muses. “Oh, chérie, that reminds me, let’s take advantage of the new pétanque channel and host a super-boules party.”
“Parfait! And we must work out our vacation, now that we can take all of August off. Instead of a weekend watching ultimate fighting in Vegas, let’s go on a monthlong wine country tour.”
“How romantic!” he exclaims. “I used to worry about getting sick on the road. But now that we have universal health care, no problem!”
Look out: another term of Obama, and we’ll all greet each other with double pecks on the cheek.
Yet there is something serious going on. The Republican candidates unleash these attacks on Obama because so many Americans have in mind a caricature of Europe as an effete, failed socialist system. As Romney puts it: “Europe isn’t working in Europe. It’s not going to work here.”
(Monsieur Romney is getting his comeuppance. Newt Gingrich has released an attack ad, called “The French Connection,” showing clips of Romney speaking the language of Paris. The scandalized narrator warns: “Just like John Kerry, he speaks French!”)
But the basic notion of Europe as a failure is a dangerous misconception. The reality is far more complicated.
Read the rest here.
Comments »Scotland’s ‘Explosive’ Push to Secede from the UK
By The Week’s Editorial Staff | The Week – Fri, Jan 13, 2012
Scotland’s first minister promises to hold a referendum on Scottish independence. Could it really succeed?
Scottish nationalists have dreamed of independence for centuries, and now, Scotland First Minister Alex Salmond is really trying to pull it off. Salmond has announced plans to hold a referendum in fall 2014 on breaking away from the United Kingdom, setting off a week of friction between Edinburgh and London. Will Scotland and the U.K. really part ways? Here’s what you should know:
What exactly is Scotland’s relationship to the U.K.?
More than 300 years ago, Scotland and England were joined by the Act of Union that formally created the U.K. (the two nations, though separate, had already been ruled by one king for more than a century). Today, Queen Elizabeth II is still Scotland’s head of state. Scotland has a government, legal system, and parliament of its own, in addition to representatives in the U.K. Parliament.
And Scotland wants independence?
Some Scots do. Such talk has been percolating ever since 1707, when the U.K. was formed. But over the centuries, there didn’t seem to be much chance that the split would actually happen. Now, says Alex Massie at The Daily Beast, “for the first time since Bonnie Prince Charlie led an army of Highland Scots into England in 1745, the survival of the United Kingdom is in doubt.”
What’s driving this latest push?
In the 1980s, conservative Tories failed to deliver a promised referendum to establish a Scottish assembly and faced a brutal backlash from voters. The Labor party didn’t want to make the same mistake, and in 1997, a referendum passed leading to the creation of the Scottish Parliament. There, resurgent Scottish national sentiment has thrived. One major driver: The common wisdom that unity with its larger neighbor was essential for Scotland’s prosperity has eroded over the last few decades, particularly as Scotland’s heavy industry declined.
But why now?
Last May, Salmond’s Scottish National Party won 69 of Parliament’s 129 seats. It was “a thumping, astonishing victory” when you consider there are five parties in the system, Massie says, and the seemingly clear and overwhelming mandate made a referendum on independence “inevitable.” Indeed, it makes perfect sense that this would be happening now, says Heather Horn at The Atlantic. Europe is in the grip of a painful economic crisis, and “nationalism surges as economies stagnate.”
Read the rest here.
Your World in Five Minutes (video)
Drink up life; always smell the roses !
[youtube://http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UGnrT0F-Igs 450 300] Comments »IMF Warns Over Global Housing Price Plunge
Social Responsibility: Business vs Humanity
Hurrah: Proposed Oilfield Shut Down in Nigeria on Hold
The common man should be rejoicing that oilfields previously decided to be shutdown will not be….for the moment. Talks over strife and strike and still progressing in Nigeria.
Comments »Merkel Promises to Speed Up Debt Solutions as Downgrades Hit Europe
Feathers Ruffled a Bit Over U.S. Sanctions of Chinese Energy Company
“China voiced “adamant” opposition to U.S. sanctions on a Chinese company selling refined petroleum products to Iran, calling Washington’s punishment an unreasonable step beyond international sanctions on Tehran’s nuclear program.
On Thursday, the Obama administration invoked U.S. law to sanction China’s state-run Zhuhai Zhenrong Corp, which it said was Iran’s largest supplier of refined petroleum products.
“Imposing sanctions on a Chinese company based on a domestic (U.S.) law is totally unreasonable, and does not conform to the spirit or content of U.N. Security Council resolutions about the Iran nuclear issue,” the Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Liu Weimin said in a statement issued on the ministry’s website late on Saturday. ”
Comments »Iran Sends Rare Letter to U.S. Over Killed Scientist
Iran said on Saturday it had evidence Washington was behind the latest killing of one of its nuclear scientists, state television reported, at a time when tensions over the country’s nuclear program have escalated to their highest level ever.
In the fifth attack of its kind in two years, a magnetic bomb was attached to the door of 32-year-old Mostafa Ahmadi-Roshan’s car during the Wednesday morning rush-hour in the capital. His driver was also killed.
U.S. Secretary of State Hilary Clinton denied responsibility and Israeli President Shimon Peres said Israel had no role in the attack, to the best of his knowledge.
“We have reliable documents and evidence that this terrorist act was planned, guided and supported by the CIA,” the Iranian foreign ministry said in a letter handed to the Swiss ambassador in Tehran, state TV reported. The Swiss embassy represents U.S. interests in a country where Washington has no diplomatic ties.
The spokesman for Iran’s Joint Armed Forces Staff, Massoud Jazayeri, said: “Our enemies, especially America , Britain and the Zionist regime (Israel), have to be held responsible for their actions.”
Iran in the past has accused Israel of causing a series of spectacular and sometimes bloody mishaps to its nuclear programme. Israeli officials do not comment on any involvement in those events, although some have publicly expressed satisfaction at the setbacks.
Feeling the heat from unprecedented new sanctions, Iran’s clerical establishment has brandished its sword by threatening to block the main Mid-East oil shipping route, starting to enrich uranium at an underground bunker and sentencing an Iranian-American citizen to death on spying charges.
State TV said a “letter of condemnation” had also been sent to Britain, saying the killing of Iranian nuclear scientists began after the head of Britain’s MI6 spy service announced intelligence operations against states seeking nuclear weapons.
The West says Iran’s nuclear programme is aimed at building a bomb. Tehran says it has the right to peaceful nuclear power.
Tehran has urged the U.N. Security Council and Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon to condemn the latest killing.
After years of international sanctions that had little impact on Iran, U.S. President Barack Obama signed new measures on New Year’s Eve that, if fully implemented, would make it impossible for most countries to pay for Iranian oil.
Washington is requiring that countries gradually reduce their purchases of Iranian oil in order to receive temporary waivers from the sanctions.
The European Union is expected to unveil similar measures next week, and announce a gradual oil embargo among its member states, who collectively buy about a fifth of Iran’s exports.
The combined measures mean Iran may fail to sell all of the 2.6 million barrels a day of exports it relies on to feed its 74 million people. Even if it finds buyers, it will have to offer steep discounts, cutting into its desperately-needed revenue.
On Tuesday shipping sources told Reuters Iran was storing an increasing supply of oil at sea – as much as 8 million barrels – and was likely to store more as it struggles to sell it.
Iran denies it is having trouble: “There has been no disruption in Iran’s crude exports through the Persian Gulf … We have not stored oil in the Gulf because of sanctions as some foreign media reported,” oil official Pirouz Mousavi told the semi-official Mehr news agency on Friday.
The sanctions are causing real hardship on the streets, where prices for basic imported goods are soaring, the rial currency has plummeted and Iranians have been flocking to sell rials to buy dollars to protect their savings.
The pain comes less than two months before a parliamentary election, Iran’s first since a presidential vote in 2009 that was followed by eight months of street demonstrations.
Iran’s authorities successfully put down that revolt by force, but since then the “Arab Spring” has shown the vulnerability of authoritarian governments in the region to protests fueled by anger over economic difficulty.
CLASH THREAT
Iran has threatened to block the Strait of Hormuz leading to the Gulf if sanctions are imposed on its oil exports, and has threatened to take unspecified action if Washington sails an aircraft carrier through the strait, an international waterway.
Military experts say Tehran can do little to fight the massive U.S.-led fleet that guards the strait, but the threats raise the chance of a miscalculation that could lead to a military clash and a global oil crisis.
The Pentagon said on Friday that small Iranian boats had approached close to U.S. vessels in the strait last week, although it said it did not believe there was “hostile intent.”
The United States and Israel have not ruled out military action if diplomacy fails to resolve the nuclear dispute. Iran says it would retaliate if attacked.
The tension has caused spikes in global oil prices in recent weeks, although prices eased at the close of last week’s trading on the prospect of reduced demand in economically stricken European countries. Brent crude fell 82 cents to settle at $110.44 a barrel on Friday.
The chances for an imminent easing of tension look even more remote as the nuclear deadlock continues because of Iran’s refusal to halt the sensitive nuclear work.
Last week Iran began enriching uranium underground – the most controversial part of its nuclear programme – at a bunker deep below a mountain near the Shi’ite holy city of Qom.
Nuclear talks with major powers collapsed a year ago. Iran says it wants the talks to resume, but the West says there is no point unless it is willing to discuss a halt to uranium enrichment, which can be used to make material for a bomb.
(Additional reporting by Mitra Amiri; Writing by Parisa Hafezi; Editing by Peter Graff)
Comments »SHOCK PHOTO: Capsized Cruise Ship off #Italy Coast
@julianmigJulián Miglierini
The BBC at the scene of the Costa Concordia incident near Giglio Islandpic.twitter.com/cUxypSuq
25 British passengers and 12 British crew all rescued safely from cruise ship Costa Concordia, British Consulate says – Sky News
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Documentary: What I have been afraid to blog about: The ESF and its History
At the very least, there is massive amounts of interesting data points that correlate to the markets.
Cheers on your holiday weekend !
[youtube://http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2ssrcD5GdPQ 450 300] [youtube://http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ImuVUab6WW0&feature=endscreen&NR=1 450 300] [youtube://http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Qsll_5-FXc&feature=related 450 300] [youtube://http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iK-741ISz94&feature=related 450 300] [youtube://http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lQf-u2nCVSw&feature=endscreen&NR=1 450 300]
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