More opposition for Merkel and her plans to print money.

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“MADRID (AP) — Spain’s central bank says €163 billion ($200 billion) has been pulled out of Spain in the first five months of the year, reflecting plunging confidence in the government’s ability to manage its financial problems.”

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Cheers on your weekend in the free world !

Click here to watch the documentary

Slavery is officially banned internationally by all countries, yet despite this there are more slaves in the world today than ever before. In the four hundred years of the legal slave trade around 13 million people were shipped from Africa. Today there are an estimated 27 million slaves – people paid no money, locked away and controlled by violence. Multi-Award winning documentary makers Kate Blewett and Brian Woods – this terrible exploitation with their own eyes.

This film explores three separate industries where slaves are still to be found: the carpet industry in northern India, the cocoa industry in the Ivory Coast, and domestic slavery in Britain and the U.S. At present, approximately 4000-5000 children are missing from Northern Bihar, India. Amongst the missing is Huro, a boy who disappeared at six years old, and hasn’t been seen by his family in over five years. The cocoa industry of Cote d’Ivoire produces nearly half the world’s supply (over 100 million tons) grown on thousands of small plantations where young men are worked up to eighteen hours a day, unpaid, and beaten if they try to escape. Kate and Brian interview slaves still working in the plantations, as well as a group of young men who had been rescued just days before. Most people imagine that slavery is only found in the developing world, a long way from Western democratic capitals. Kate and Brian found slavery in both Washington and London. A woman named Dora in Washington and another named Reshma in London both tell stories of cruelty, long hours and no payment. Both wish, in their own courageous way, to bring to the public’s attention the wrong that has been done to them in order to prevent such abuses happening in the future.

“FRANKFURT—The European Central Bank cast more gloom over the euro zone’s outlook Thursday, announcing another fall in lending to the private sector in June, as well as signs of increased deposit withdrawals from troubled banks in southern Europe.

The ECB’s monthly summary of monetary developments in the euro area offered some crumbs of comfort, as both the narrow M1 and broad M3 money aggregates expanded faster than expected, bolstering hopes that the bank’s liquidity injections around the turn of the year were finally gaining traction.”

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“European Central Bank President Mario Draghi said policy makers will do whatever is needed to preserve the euro, suggesting they may intervene in bond markets as surging yields in Spain and Italy threaten the existence of the 17-nation currency bloc.

“To the extent that the size of these sovereign premia hamper the functioning of the monetary policy transmission channel, they come within our mandate,” Draghi said in a speech at the Global Investment Conference in London today. “Within our mandate, the ECB is ready to do whatever it takes to preserve the euro,” he said, adding: “believe me, it will be enough.”

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Alternate Headline: Cash-Strapped French Socialists Face Reality of Running Out of Other People’s Money.

The champion of a moderate stimulus plan for Europe, at home French President Francois Hollande is turning his back on the sort of infrastructure investment he hopes will revive European growth.

His cash-strapped Socialist government is considering scrapping all but the most needed projects as it is forced to weigh questionable economic benefits in an era of belt-tightening.

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“The patient’s history includes a seizure in 2007/ 2008 — financial losses, banking problems, a major recession. Liberal injections of taxpayer cash avoided catastrophic multiple organ failure, assisting a modest recovery.

Governments ran large budget deficits in the period after the crisis. Interest rates around the world were reduced to historic lows, zero or negative in many developed countries. Balance sheets of major central banks have increased to $18 trillion from around $6 trillion, reflecting an unprecedented 30% of global gross domestic product.

Mr. Economy is now addicted to monetary heroin. Increasing doses are necessary for the patient to function at all.”

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“Spanish and Italian bonds rose on speculation the European Central Bank will augment the firepower of the region’s bailout fund as policy makers step up efforts to contain contagion from the debt crisis.

The gain pushed Spain’s two-year note yield down from a euro-era record after ECB council member Ewald Nowotny said there are arguments in favor of giving the European Stability Mechanism a banking license. German bunds fell for a third day as the nation sold 2.32 billion euros ($2.81 billion) of 30-year debt at a record-low yield. Business confidence in Europe’s biggest economy slid to the lowest level in more than two years in July, according to a report.”

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“Europe’s quest to sever the link between Spain’s fiscal fate and its failing banks hinges on an obstacle-strewn race to hand greater powers to the European Central Bank.

Until euro-area leaders overcome German doubts, ECB concerns, and turf battles everywhere, Spain will remain on the hook for a bailout of its banks of as much as 100 billion euros ($121 billion). Policy makers want to protect taxpayers from losses so potentially big they risk bankrupting governments, as happened in Ireland and Iceland.”

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Global Macro Monitor is out with some fugly charts juxtaposed against some good technical analysis.

See the world’s ugliest charts here.

“Germany’s bunds sank, pushing up yields from near all-time lows, after Moody’s Investors Service cut the outlook on the nation’s top rating citing concern it will have to support weaker euro-region members.

Spain’s five- and 10-year bond yields climbed to euro-era records as the nation’s borrowing costs rose at an auction of 3.05 billion euros ($3.69 billion) of bills. Italy’s 10-year bonds fell for a third day after a report showed services and manufacturing in the euro region shrank in July. Government debt from the Netherlands fell as its outlook was also lowered by Moody’s, along with Luxembourg.”

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via mashable.com

Chris DeVito is the director of Iran180, a nonprofit seeking to change the Iranian government’s treatment of its citizens. His writing and analysis has appeared in major news outlets, including Foreign Policy and The Huffington Post.

Imagine you live in a country where there is heavily restricted access to the Internet. Websites deemed objectionable are blocked. Even when government censors don’t directly vet content, writers practice a high degree of self censorship. The few publications that deviate from this standard are regularly shut down, and those responsible for producing them face potentially serious legal repercussions.

This is the daily reality for citizens of Iran, where access to the Internet has been limited since the presidential elections in 2009, when Twitter and YouTube users informed the world about what was happening on the ground in Tehran. As the government in Iran faces increasing external pressure from a range of international actors, it is clearly grasping for any and all tools to assert its authority at home. This has meant cracking down on all online activity. The abuses fall into four distinct categories.

• 1. Censorship: The basis of censorship in Iran, both overt and self-imposed, lies in the law. The constitution makes clear that “publications and the press have freedom of expression, except when it is detrimental to the fundamental principles of [the state and religion].” Furthermore, writings “critical of the government and not in the best interest of the community” are illegal. Violating these provisions can be considered a capital offense. These standards are so broad, that any and all speech, including speech on the web, can easily be categorized as a violation.

• 2. Monitoring the Web: The Iranian government makes monitoring web activity an important element of its authoritarian toolkit. The government makes explicit use of web monitoring software, and actively tracks usage manually from public access points. It collects passwords, login details, and other information from individuals, and tracks social network usage.

• 3. Tampering with the Architecture: The Iranian government poses tremendous challenges to those seeking to transmit information online or even conduct a basic Google search. The government requires all internet service providers (ISPs) to obtain licenses. All ISPs must purchase their bandwidth via government controlled access service providers. These effectively government-controlled ISPs are also required by law to deploy filtering systems targeting content deemed “objectionable.” ISPs are then held liable if any “illegal” content ends up on a site. An inter-agency panel of political appointees determines what is acceptable. In Iran, home internet connections operate at a snail’s pace, with a maximum speed of just 128 kilobytes per second, and 56 kilobytes on average.

• 4. Distributing False or Counter Information: On top of all this, the few websites Iranians can view without obstruction feature content produced by government entities. The purpose of this effort is to make it clear to Iran’s citizens that the government’s authority extends everywhere, even cyberspace. Regime officials have claimed to sponsor more than 10,000 blogs.

These challenges are becoming more significant. In recent months, the government has announced that it intends to pursue a national intranet, which some believe is meant to replace the world wide web. Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei also said that he intends to create a Supreme Council of Virtual Space to monitor and oversee internet policy, and digital rights activists have uncovered software designed to track Iranian dissidents.

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A German newspaper reported yesterday that the IMF will not support Greece anymore. In an effort to contain damage to equities the IMF made a statement saying that they will continue to support Greece.

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“Since the financial crisis, European bank assets in the United States have fallen an incredible $540 billion dollars from $1.51 trillion to $973 billion.

The FT reports that a combination of write downs, sales of loans and businesses, bank failures, and higher capital ratio requirements have pushed U.S. assets held by Eurozone banks to their lowest levels since 2005.

The drop is most pronounced in countries that have suffered severe banking crises. Ireland’s banks, for example, have seen their U.S. assets decline from 130 billion in 2008 to just $3.6 billion as of March.”

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via nytimes.com

BEIJING — The heaviest rainfall in six decades caused widespread havoc in the capital over the weekend, killing at least 37 people and forcing the evacuation of 50,000 others from waterlogged neighborhoods and villages, according to the state news media.

More than six inches of rain fell overnight Saturday into Sunday, collapsing roofs, downing power lines and turning highway underpasses into ponds that engulfed scores of cars and buses. About 80,000 passengers at Beijing Capital International Airportwere stranded overnight after fierce thunderstorms forced the cancellation of 500 flights, the state-run Xinhua news agency said.

The sewerage system of Beijing, a city poised on the edge of the Gobi Desert, is ill-equipped to handle heavy precipitation; residents in low-lying areas are accustomed to dealing with minor flooding after rainstorms. Officials said the rain, which began at noon and stretched into the early morning, was the heaviest since 1951.

A senior International Monetary Fund economist is resigning from the Fund, writing a scathing letter to the board blaming management for suppressing staff warnings about the financial crisis and a pro-European bias that he says has exacerbated the euro-zone debt crisis.

Read the rest here.

via WSJ.com

Time to unfurl Old Glory and break out the red, white and blue boxer shorts.

Four years after China became the first country since 1992 to win more Olympic gold medals than the U.S., The Wall Street Journal’s medal projections for London suggest the Star-Spangled Banner will once again play more often than any other anthem.

And for the fifth consecutive Summer Games, the U.S. should finish atop theoverall medal table.

China’s victory in the gold-medal race in 2008 was supposed to herald the arrival of the newest Olympic superpower, a vast country with 1.3 billion people and a proven government-sponsored training program. Even at the U.S. Olympic Committee headquarters in Colorado Springs, there was a growing sense that China would win the most gold and overall medals in 2012.

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via CNBC.com

Asian stocks edged down on Friday as weak U.S. economic data outweighed robust corporate earnings.

The S&P 500 index [.SPX  1376.51    3.73  (+0.27%)   ] rallied to a fresh 2-1/2 month peak overnight on a strong full-year outlook from IBM [IBM  195.34   7.09  (+3.77%)   ], bullish earnings from eBay [EBAY  43.95    3.49  (+8.63%)   ]and Qualcomm’s [QCOM  58.435    2.385  (+4.26%)   ] expectations for a strong December quarter. But weaker-than-expected readings on U.S. manufacturing, housing and labor markets capped gains.

The FTSE CNBC Asia 100 Index [.FTFCNBCA  6019.05    -14.26  (-0.24%)], which measures markets across Asia, dipped 0.3 percent.

Japan’s Nikkei share average slipped in early trade as a firmer yen offset positive sentiment after U.S. stocks, buoyed by corporate earnings, rose for a third straight day.

The Nikkei [.N225  8792.19    -3.36  (-0.04%)   ] eased 0.4 percent to 8,764.45, holding above its five-day moving average at 8,752.53, while the broaderTopix index was down 0.6 percent at 743.05.

Oil refiner Idemitsu Kosan retreated 0.4 percent after it shut the 220,000 barrels per day No. 2 crude distillation unit at its Chiba refinery, east of Tokyo, on Thursday evening after fire.

Toyota is close to an agreement to purchase light commercial vans from PSA Peugeot Citroen’s threatened Sevelnord plant in northern France, La Tribune reported. Its stock slipped 0.3 percent.

Seoul shares was flat as robust corporate earnings offset weak U.S. economic data.

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“(Reuters) – Central bankers and regulators will hold talks in September on whether the troubled global Libor interest rate can be reformed or whether it is so damaged that the benchmark of borrowing costs should be scrapped.

Bank of England Governor Mervyn King told fellow central bankers in a letter that it was “very clear that radical reforms of the Libor system are needed”.

Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke and global financial regulator Mark Carney, who is also governor of the Bank of Canada, on Wednesday floated possible alternatives to the London interbank offered rate, which some bankers manipulated in the 2007-09 financial crisis.

“There are different alternatives if Libor cannot be fixed,” Carney told a news conference in Ottawa.”

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“Financial aid sought by Spain from its euro-area partners to shore up banks must be restricted to viable lenders, the German government said.

Spain will face conditions in drawing as much as 100 billion euros ($123 billion) in aid for its banks, “of which the most important is that they will be very carefully scrutinized to see which ones can survive,” German Deputy Finance Minister Thomas Steffen told state representatives in the upper house of parliament in Berlin today. “Banks that aren’t viable must be treated differently to those that are.”

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