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EU draws up plans to establish itself as ‘world power’

2009/10/15 in E.U., Eurasia, Government, Politics by ciaccimon | Comments closed

The European Union has drawn up secret plans to establish itself as a global power in its own right with the authority to sign international agreements on behalf of member states.

United States of Europa

United States of Europa

Confidential negotiations on how to implement the Lisbon Treaty have produced proposals to allow the EU to negotiate treaties and even open embassies across the world.

A letter conferring a full “legal personality” for the Union has been drafted in order for a new European diplomatic service to be recognised as fully fledged negotiators by international bodies and all non-EU countries.

According to one confidential paper, the first pilot “embassies” are planned in New York, Kabul and Addis Ababa.

The move is highly symbolic in Britain as it formally scraps the “European Community”, the organisation in which Britons originally voted to remain in the country’s only referendum on Europe 34 years ago.

Mark Francois, Conservative spokesman on Europe, said that the deal showed why the British should have been given a referendum on the Lisbon Treaty.

“As we have long warned, the Lisbon Treaty increases the EU’s power at the expense of the countries of Europe,” he said. “The new power a single legal personality would give the EU is a classic example.

“It illustrates why it is wrong for Labour to try to deny the British people any say on this Treaty at all.”

The decision, taken shortly before Ireland’s referendum last week, will mean a new European diplomatic service with over 160 “EU representations” and ambassadors across the world.

Lorraine Mullally, the director of Open Europe, described the move as “a huge transfer of power which makes the EU look more like a country than an international agreement”.

“Giving the EU legal personality means that the EU, rather than member states, will be able to sign all kinds of international agreements – on foreign policy, defence, crime and judicial issues – for the first time,” she said.

She pointed out that the 1975 referendum was on staying in the EC and that it was the European Communities Act that gave Brussels legislation primacy over British law.

“British voters agreed to join the European Communities, not a political union with legal personality with the power to sign all kinds of international agreements,” said Miss Mullally. “No one under the age of 52 has ever had a say on this important evolution and it’s about time we did.”

A restricted document circulated by the Netherlands, Belgium and Luxembourg, seen by The Daily Telegraph, spells out the need for legal changes to set up a European External Service (EEAS), an EU diplomatic and foreign service with “global geographical scope”.

EU diplomatic service

EU diplomatic service

The paper said: “The EEAS will need a legal status providing it with functional legal personality so that it has sufficient autonomy.

“This legal personality should also give it the capacity to act as necessary to carry out (its) tasks.”

A British diplomat defended the decision. “The EU has been able to sign treaties for over a decade. The innovation under the Lisbon Treaty is that the European Community will cease to have legal personality. This is about simplification,” she said.

Brussels ambassadors yesterday (TUES) began detailed work, in secret, to create new institutions, the EEAS, “foreign minister” and EU President, that are to be set up under the Lisbon Treaty.

Decisions “in principle” will be taken despite the fact that both Poland and the Czech Republic have not yet fully ratified the new EU Treaty.

The creation of the EEAS has sparked a bitter Brussels turf war. The European Commission could lose up to 1,424 senior staff from three departments.

Another 400 staff will be taken from the Council of the EU and an “equivalent” number will be seconded from national diplomatic services.

The EEAS will take over Commission representations – there are currently more than 160 offices around the world – and its senior diplomats will be given the same status as national ambassadors.

Source: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/eu/6266147/EU-draws-up-plans-to-establish-itself-as-world-power.html

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Don’t Mess with Iran’s Evolutionary Process

2009/06/30 in Elections, Globalization, Government, Obama, Politics, Ron Paul by John Adlai | 3 comments

By Philip Giraldi | Published 06/26/09

Iran Protest

Everyone is looking for something to say about Iran. The neo-conservatives are predictably hailing the march of democracy on the streets of Tehran for reasons of their own, while hawks like Senators John McCain and Lindsay Graham are calling on the Obama Administration to do something to help anyone tagged as a reformer. More moderate voices are generally supporting President Barack Obama’s initial show of restraint — avoiding any open support of either side — and only condemning the violence because it is disproportionate due to the suffering it has caused. Still others are calling on the United States to avoid any interference of any kind. The non-interventionists themselves fall into two camps: the constitutionalists and libertarians believe that interfering in other people’s quarrels is intrinsically problematical because as John Quincy Adams said, “America does not need to go abroad in search of monsters to destroy.” Realists argue that interventions by the United States rarely turn out well, citing the cases of Vietnam, Bosnia, Lebanon, Iraq, Somalia, and more.

Having spent much of my working life as an intelligence officer on the street in places like Istanbul, I am astonished at what passes for expertise in the debate over what to do about Iran. It is clear that even the few genuine experts on Iran don’t really know what is going on there because they are slaves to their sources of information, which tend to reflect their own philosophical viewpoints and are, in any event, narrowly based. It is conventional wisdom in most of the US media that the Iranian election was stolen, the result of massive fraud. But was it? Opinion polls conducted by a US based organization several weeks before the polling predicted an Ahmadinejad victory. The president is hugely popular among poor rural Iranians and also enjoys overwhelming support for his defense of Iran’s right to develop nuclear energy. Elections are very complex affairs and how a talking head sitting in Washington, breathlessly interpreting grainy texting images, can even pretend to understand what is going on in Iran and why defies all logic, particularly if the expert in question speaks no Farsi and probably would have difficulty in locating Isfahan on a map.

Mir Hossein Mousavi is a reformer and modernist, isn’t he? Perhaps not. He has always been extremely conservative in his political alignments. As Prime Minister in 1981-9, he was regarded as a hardliner. He started Iran’s nuclear program, helped found Hezbollah and may have directed the attack on the Marine barracks in Beirut. He is, in reality, a defender of extremely corrupt vested interests. That he has attracted the support of the so-called “Gucci crowd” of twentyish twitterers does not mean that he has embraced western values. As president, he would not abandon nuclear energy and would not immediately begin to talk nice to Barack Obama. His reformer credentials are pretty much non-existent, the creation of a media and an engaged punditry that wants to explain the Iran crisis in terms that a European or American audience would find comfortable.

And then there is the corruption issue, Iran’s six hundred pound gorilla. Mousavi is heir to the corrupt Iran of the post-revolutionary period when the country was looted by the senior clerics cooperating with the business class, the bazaaris. Some intelligence sources believe that Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who has been demonized by the western media, is actually the reformer in that he has taken on the country’s pervasive corruption with the full support of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the Supreme Leader. Massive corruption has been business as usual in Iran, frequently managed by politicians who have called themselves reformers. Another so-called reformer, who is the money man behind Mousavi, is former Iranian Majlis speaker Akhbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, nicknamed “the Shark.” Rafsanjani is a billionaire who controls large sectors of the country’s economy, to include a chain of private universities which became the source of the young organizers who brought the twitterers out on the street.

If there was one thing I learned from twenty years of experience as a military intelligence and CIA officer it is that nothing is ever what it seems. If a situation appears to be clear cut, with good guys and bad guys arrayed against each other it is probably anything but. So maybe black and white comes out gray. All the more reason to step back. The interventionists from both left and right do not make it clear what the United States should do to help the “reformers.” Perhaps that is just as well as the only options would be to hurl empty threats, start bombing, or initiate yet another CIA covert action to destabilize the regime, ignoring the lessons of the CIA’s 1953 debacle, and with the predictable and contrary result of actually strengthening the clerics and their rule.

Change by evolution is better than by revolution. Both metamorphoses are underway in Iran: one is immediate and reactionary and, perhaps necessarily, more graphic and even grim. The other suggests the possibility that long-lasting change might happen in Tehran — if outside influences do not upset the sensitive process of transformation. As is frequently the case, those who would do nothing probably have it right, whether arguing for constitutional reasons or as realists. Iran and its elections are issues that we do not and cannot understand and they are ultimately issues that have to be decided by the Iranian people. Rightly or wrongly, outside interference in what is taking place on the streets of Tehran will be exploited by the regime to deflect any legitimate criticism, making any change even less likely. The old Hippocratic advice to doctors to “do no harm” should perhaps be the best advice for the American political chattering classes and the media. Doing no harm regarding events in Iran is to stay out of it.

Source: http://www.campaignforliberty.com/article.php?view=121

Giraldi

Philip M. Giraldi, Ph.D. is the Francis Walsingham Fellow at The American Conservative Defense Alliance (www.ACDAlliance.org) and a former CIA counter-terrorism specialist and military intelligence officer.
Copyright © 2009 The American Conservative Defense Alliance

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Strange Inconsistencies in the $134.5 Billion Bearer Bond Mystery

2009/06/17 in E.U., Economy, Eurasia, Federal Reserve, Finance, Government, NWO, U.S. by John Adlai | Comments closed

Here’s yet another huge financial story that has been virtually blacked out by the E.U. financial media. Although on the surface, this story appears to be a non-event, if we consider some of the released facts about this case, you will understand why I consider it to be a huge story. On June 8th, the Asia News reported the following story:

“Italy’s financial police (Guardia italiana di Finanza) has seized US bonds worth US 134.5 billion from two Japanese nationals at Chiasso (40 km from Milan) on the border between Italy and Switzerland. They include 249 US Federal Reserve bonds worth US$ 500 million each, plus ten Kennedy bonds and other US government securities worth a billion dollars each. Italian authorities have not yet determined whether they are real or fake, but if they are real the attempt to take them into Switzerland would be the largest financial smuggling operation in history; if they are fake, the matter would be even more mind-boggling because the quality of the counterfeit work is such that the fake bonds are undistinguishable from the real ones.”

Picture of the seized "bonds", via E.U. site Adnkronos.

Picture of the seized "bonds", via E.U. site Adnkronos.

Here are just a few fascinating facts about this case (at least they are being reported as “facts” at this current time):

(1) Though the smugglers have been identified in the press as “Japanese nationals” there has yet to be any confirmation if the smugglers were indeed Japanese or of some other ethnicity. How difficult is it to confirm the ethnicity of the smugglers and why is this information being kept secret?

(2) According to a brief Bloomberg article regarding this story, the seized bearer bonds allegedly were dated as of 1934. Since bearer bonds in denominations of $500 million did not exist in 1934, the bonds were deduced as fake, though the Italian police are still waiting for a declaration regarding the bonds’ authenticity from the SEC. There is something truly “off” about this declaration. How can the quality of the forged bearer bonds be so meticulous that they “are indistinguishable from the real ones”, yet the people involved in the alleged forgery so ill-informed as to not date the bearer bonds with a more recent year that would not immediately identify them as fraudulent? How hard would it have been to date the bearer bonds with a more recent year? An equivalent analogy would be if an expert art forger meticulously re-created a Picasso oil canvas and then erroneously signed the work with the wrong artist’s name. This story just does not add up.

(3) The Bloomberg story also reported that there is no known existence of the alleged 10 Kennedy bonds that were discovered in the smuggler’s suitcases, each with a denomination of $1 billion. Again, this discovery defies any logical explanation. Why would expert counterfeiters make 249 bearer bonds with denominations of $500 million apiece, each indistinguishable from the real thing, and then instead of just making 20 more such bonds, decide to make 10 bonds in denominations of $1 billion a piece in a bearer bond design that has never existed? Were the alleged counterfeiters just too lazy to confirm if Kennedy bearer bonds were ever a legitimately issued security? Again, this story makes no sense.

(4) On March 30, 2009, the US Treasury Department announced that USD $134.5 billion remained in its Troubled Asset Relief Program [TARP]. The stated amount of seized bearer bonds was $134.5 billion. Coincidence?

(5) The two well-dressed Japanese men opted to travel to Chiasso on a local train normally full of Italian manual laborers commuting to Switzerland. If they were really intent on successfully smuggling these bonds, counterfeit or real, why would they not take more care to select a travel route in which it was literally impossible for them not to stick out like two sore thumbs? Again, this part of the story defies all logic.

(6) The bearer bonds were discovered in a hidden briefcase compartment after a customs inspection. Again, if the bonds were indeed authentic and owned by a nation state, they could have been transported in a diplomatic pouch exempt from customs searches that would have guaranteed transport without detection.
Thus, all of the above irreconcilable and illogical points, other than the coincidence of the amount of the bearer bonds exactly matching the remaining TARP fund amount declared on March 30th, seem to indicate that not only were the seized bearer bonds counterfeit, but also that the smugglers were intent on being caught.
Before I continue, let’s review the purpose of bearer bonds.

Here is the Wikipedia definition of bearer bonds:

“A bearer bond is a debt security issued by a business entity, such as a corporation, or by a government. It differs from the more common types of investment securities in that it is unregistered – no records are kept of the owner, or the transactions involving ownership. Whoever physically holds the paper on which the bond is issued owns the instrument. This is useful for investors who wish to retain anonymity. The downside is that in the event of loss or theft, bearer bonds are extremely difficult to recover.”

If you recall the Michael Mann movie “Heat”, starring Robert DeNiro and Al Pacino, during a daring daytime armored car robbery, the criminals specifically targeted millions of dollars of bearer bonds for theft precisely because of the above qualities of bearer bonds that make them very difficult to trace. Again, due to the properties of bearer bonds, it seems highly unlikely that $134.5 billion of bearer bonds would be transported, if they were real, by two men with no security, since theft almost guarantees that they would be lost forever.

Thus far, about the only piece of information that appears to be reliable as reported by various news sources regarding this huge mystery is the remarkable authenticity of the 249 seized bearer bonds in denominations of USD $500 million. If any of the other facts, as they are being reported, are remotely accurate, then the bearer bonds were likely counterfeit. Still, the interesting part of this story, at least to me, is that the smugglers seemed intent on being caught with the counterfeit bonds. This leads me back to my previous question. What possible reason would the smugglers have for wanting to be caught? One of the quickest ways to sabotage and usher in the death of a currency is to raise legitimate questions about its ability to withstand counterfeiting efforts. Prove that counterfeiting is not only possible but highly likely, and the world’s confidence in the sabotaged currency will undoubtedly plummet.

In fact, this very tactic was applied during World War II when the Nazis launched Operation Bernhard in an attempt to crash the British economy by producing, by 1945, 132 million expertly counterfeited British pounds, a figure that represented roughly 15% of all real British pounds in circulation at the time. The counterfeit pounds were produced by expert printers and engravers supervised by an SS officer named Bernhard Krueger. As well, historical evidence exists that the Allies considered launching a counter-counterfeit plan against the Nazis as well. During this time, it was also alleged that the Bank of Italy counterfeited their own money by issuing the same securities twice with identical registered numbers and codes in order. The purpose of this counterfeiting was to secretly expand monetary supply without public transparency or accountability. Perhaps then, this $134.5.billion bearer bond mystery was an attempt of a nation state to shake the world’s confidence in the position of the US dollar as the world’s reserve currency.

There should be little debate that the world’s emerging economies in Russia, Brazil, China and certain Gulf Nations are at economic war today with the world’s Western nations and their economic allies. The currency war being fought today is sure to get much uglier in the foreseeable future, in both open tactics as well as secretly executed tactics. Currently, if the currency war were the world series of poker, the US and the UK would be holding a pair of 2s and relying on nothing but bluffs to keep the rest of the world at bay. Conversely, the Chinese and other emerging nations with large surpluses would be holding straight or royal flushes, and likely quietly maneuvering to go “all in” at some point.

Given that the discovery of $134.5 billion of bearer bonds in the suitcases of two Japanese nationals in Chiasso, Italy on the border of Switzerland qualifies as one of the largest smuggling operations in history, and given the various implications of such an act and the possible players involved, the silence regarding this huge story is simply stunning. It is not a huge story, per se, because of the counterfeiting operation, because accusations and revelations of massive money counterfeiting operations have occured in the past. It is a huge story, rather, due to all the inconsistencies of the story and the potential explanations that could explain these inconsistencies. The larger story at hand is, who are the players (nations) involved, and what was the intention of this likely counterfeiting operation? Maybe the future will reveal the answers to these questions. But maybe not.

Source: http://seekingalpha.com/article/143462-strange-inconsistencies-in-the-134-5-billion-bearer-bond-mystery

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Is Swine Flu A Biological Weapon?

2009/04/30 in E.U., Globalization, Government, NWO, Obama, Politics, Tyranny, U.K., U.S. by John Adlai | Comments closed

Paul Joseph Watson
Prison Planet.com
Monday, April 27, 2009

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There are some factors that suggest the swine flu killing people in Mexico may be a biological weapon, but obviously no such conclusion can be drawn at this time. The World Health Organization and the U.S. government have been quick to deny such claims.

The swine flu virus is described as a completely new strain, an intercontinental mixture of human, avian and swine viruses. Tellingly, there have been no reported A-H1N1 infections of pigs.

According to a source known to former NSA official Wayne Madsen, “A top scientist for the United Nations, who has examined the outbreak of the deadly Ebola virus in Africa, as well as HIV/AIDS victims, concluded that H1N1 possesses certain transmission “vectors” that suggest that the new flu strain has been genetically-manufactured as a military biological warfare weapon.

Madsen claims that his source, and another in Indonesia, “Are convinced that the current outbreak of a new strain of swine flu in Mexico and some parts of the United States is the result of the introduction of a human-engineered pathogen that could result in a widespread global pandemic, with potentially catastrophic consequences for domestic and international travel and commerce.”

However, it’s important to stress that it is far too early to make this assumption. We have to bear in mind that the number of victims has been comparatively low when one considers the fact that hundreds of thousands in Mexico contract infectious diseases every year related to poverty like tuberculosis and malaria.

 

Fort Detrick, the U.S. Army Medical Command installation that was the source of the 2001 anthrax attacks, is again attracting suspicion in light of the swine flu panic after it was revealed that criminal investigators are probing whether virus samples recently went missing from its biolabs.

“Chad Jones, spokesman for Fort Meade, said CID is investigating the possibility of missing virus samples from the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases,” reports The Frederick News.

In February, USAMRIID halted their work when virus samples were discovered that were not listed in its inventory. Criminal investigators from the U.S. Army Criminal Investigation Division unit at Fort Meade are now probing whether virus samples are missing from the Army’s top biolab, which also studies pathogens including ebola, anthrax and plague.

Obviously, in light of the current swine flu scare, and the new strain’s possible synthetic origin, the fact that virus samples may have gone missing from the same Army research lab from which the 2001 anthrax strain was released is extremely disturbing.

A 2008 FBI and DOJ investigation concluded that Bruce Edwards Irvins, a microbiologist, vaccinologist, and senior biodefense researcher at the United States Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases (USAMRIID) in Fort Detrick, Maryland, was responsible for mailing anthrax to members of Congress and the media in September and October 2001.

The fact that Irvins apparently committed suicide shortly before the announcement led many to suspect that he was a patsy in a wider plot. Despite the suspicious circumstances, no autopsy was carried out on Irvins’ body. His attorney was certain that Irvins, who had cooperated with the 6-year investigation, was innocent of the five anthrax deaths.

The Department of Justice initially considered Dr. Steven Jay Hatfill to be a strong suspect in the anthrax attacks, but he later sued the government and won $5.8 million in damages. A New York Times piece on Irvins’ suicide asked the hypothetical question: “What if Dr. Hatfill had committed suicide in 2002, as friends feared he might? Would the investigators have released their evidence and announced that the perpetrator was dead?”

Fears that a mass pandemic was being readied as a biological attack have rumbled on in the conspiracy community ever since 9/11. Investigators point to the highly unusual number of deaths of top microbiologists to suggest that people with knowledge of the program are being eliminated.

Source: http://www.infowars.com/is-swine-flu-a-biological-weapon/

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I.O.U.S.A the movie

2009/04/05 in Documentary, Economy, Federal Reserve, Films, Finance, Globalization, Government, Obama, Politics, Ron Paul, U.S. by ciaccimon | Comments closed

ABOUT THE MOVIE

Wake up, United States! The federal government is on the brink of a financial meltdown. I.O.U.S.A. boldly examines the rapidly growing national debt and its consequences for the United States and its citizens. Burdened with an ever-expanding government and military, increased international competition, overextended entitlement programs, and debts to foreign countries that are becoming impossible to honor, the U.S. must mend its spendthrift ways or face an economic disaster of epic proportions.

I.O.U.S.A.

Throughout history, the U.S. government has found it nearly impossible to spend only what has been raised through taxes. Wielding candid interviews with both average U.S. taxpayers and government officials, Sundance veteran Patrick Creadon (Wordplay) helps demystify the nation’s financial practices and policies. The film follows former U.S. Comptroller General David Walker as he crisscrosses the country explaining U.S’ unsustainable fiscal policies to its citizens.

With surgical precision, Creadon interweaves archival footage and economic data to paint a vivid and alarming profile of U.S.’ current economic situation. The ultimate power of I.O.U.S.A. is that the film moves beyond doomsday rhetoric to proffer potential financial scenarios and propose solutions about how we can recreate a fiscally sound nation for future generations.

Creadon uses candid interviews and his featured subjects include Warren Buffett, Alan Greenspan, Paul O’Neill, Robert Rubin, and Paul Volcker, along with the Peter G. Peterson Foundation’s own David Walker and Bob Bixby of the Concord Coalition, a Foundation grantee.

Pointedly topical and consummately nonpartisan, I.O.U.S.A. drives home the message that the only time for U.S.’ financial future is now.

“To the U.S. economy what ‘An Inconvenient Truth’ was to the environment.” – Reuters

“Resolutely non-partisan… a documentary everyone should see.” – Jeannette Catsoulis, The New York Times

My favorite quotes from I.O.U.S.A. The Movie

Without savings, there is no future.  – Alan Greenspan (the father of cheap credit)

The concepts of sacrificing and building for a better tomorrow have been pushed aside by our live for today, easy credit, and consumption oriented society.  – Narrator

The only situation that is worse than this [i.e. our national debt], would be a terrorist getting their hands on a nuclear device and using it against us.  The national debt issue absolutely guarantees that our children will have less of a quality of life than we’ve had.  – Senator Judd Gregg, New Hampshire

Source: http://www.iousathemovie.com/

Links: http://www.brillig.com/debt_clock/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Debt_Clock

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/7660409.stm

Full Version Available Here:

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=270867650600562607&ei=znjYSYfMOsHB-AbPqbS9Bg&q=I.O.U.S.A.&hl=en

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Ron Paul on the Budget and the G20

2009/04/03 in E.U., Globalization, Government, Politics, Ron Paul, U.S. by John Adlai | Comments closed

On Thursday, Dr. Paul sat down with legislative assistant Paul-Martin Foss to give his thoughts on the budget, global economic regulation, and the gold standard.

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G-20 Shapes New World Order With Lesser Role for U.S., Markets

2009/04/03 in E.U., Eurasia, Globalization, Government, NWO, Obama, Politics, Tyranny, U.K., U.S. by ciaccimon | 1 comment

April 3 (Bloomberg) — Global leaders took their biggest steps yet toward a new world order that’s less U.S.-centric with a more heavily regulated financial industry and a greater role for international institutions and emerging markets.

charles_xavier

At the end of a summit in London, policy makers from the Group of 20 yesterday delivered a regulatory blueprint that French President Nicholas Sarkozy said turned the page on the Anglo-Saxon model of free markets by placing stricter limits on hedge funds and other financiers. The leaders also pledged to triple the resources of the International Monetary Fund and to hand China and other developing economies a greater say in the management of the world economy.

“It’s the passing of an era,” said Robert Hormats, vice chairman of Goldman Sachs International, who helped prepare summits for presidents Gerald R. Ford, Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan. “The U.S. is becoming less dominant while other nations are gaining influence.”

A lot was at stake. If the leaders had failed to forge a consensus — Sarkozy this week threatened to quit the talks if they didn’t back much tighter regulation — it might have set back the world’s economy and markets just as they’re showing signs of shaking off the worst financial crisis in six decades.

That’s what happened in 1933, when President Franklin D. Roosevelt torpedoed a similar conference in London by rejecting its plan to stabilize currency rates and in the process scotched international efforts to lift the world out of a depression.

More Conciliation

Seeking to avoid a repeat of that historic flop, President Barack Obama junked the at-times go-it-alone approach of his predecessor, George W. Bush, and adopted a more conciliatory stance toward his fellow leaders.

“In a world that is as complex as it is, it is very important for us to be able to forge partnerships as opposed to simply dictating solutions,” Obama told a press conference at the conclusion of the summit.

Stock markets rose in response to the steps taken by the G-20 leaders. The Standard & Poor’s 500 Index climbed 2.9 percent to 834.38. The Dow Jones Industrial Average added 216.48 points, or 2.8 percent, to 7,978.08. Both closed at their highest levels since the second week of February.

In an effort to promote harmony, Obama soft-pedaled earlier U.S. demands that the summit agree on a specific target for fiscal stimulus in the face of opposition from France and Germany. Instead, he settled for a vague pledge that the leaders would do whatever it takes to revive the global economy.

Repudiation of Past

The president also signed on to a communiqué that Nobel Laureate Joseph Stiglitz said repudiated the previous U.S.-led push to free capitalism from the constraints of governments.

“This is a major step forward and a reversal of the ideology of the 1990s, and at a very official level, a rejection of the ideas pushed by the U.S. and others,” said Stiglitz, an economics professor at Columbia University. “It’s a historic moment when the world came together and said we were wrong to push deregulation.”

In bowing to that view, the leaders conceded in a statement that “major failures” in regulation had been “fundamental causes” of the market turmoil they are trying to tackle. To make amends and to try to avoid a repeat of the crisis, they pledged to impose stronger restraints on hedge funds, credit rating companies, risk-taking and executive pay.

“Countries that used to defend deregulation at any cost are recognizing that there needs to be a larger state presence so this crisis never happens again,” said Argentine President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner.

Financial Stability Board

A new Financial Stability Board will be established to unite regulators and join the IMF in providing early warnings of potential threats. Once the economy recovers, work will begin on new rules aimed at avoiding excessive leverage and forcing banks to put more money aside during good times.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who had unsuccessfully sought to convince the U.S. and Britain to sign on to similar steps before the crisis began in mid-2007, hailed the communiqué as a “victory for common sense.”

The U.S. did, though, take the lead in getting the summit to agree on an increase in IMF rescue funds to $750 billion from $250 billion now. Japan, the European Union and China will provide the first $250 billion of the increase, with the balance to come from as yet unidentified countries.

“This will provide the IMF with enough resources to meet the needs of East European nations and also provide back-up funding to a broader set of countries,” said Brad Setser, a former U.S. Treasury official who’s now at the Council on Foreign Relations in New York.

IMF Allocation

The G-20 also agreed to an allocation of $250 billion in Special Drawing Rights, the artificial currency that the IMF uses to settle accounts among its member nations. The move is akin to a central bank such as the Federal Reserve effectively creating money out of thin air, except it’s on a global scale.

The increase in Special Drawing Rights will allow countries to tap IMF money without having to accept changes to economic policies often demanded as a condition of aid. The cash is disbursed in proportion to the money each member-nation pays into the fund. Rich nations will be allowed to divert their allocations to countries in greater need.

The G-20 said they would couple the financing moves with steps to give emerging economic powerhouses such as China, India and Brazil a greater say in how the IMF is run.

Emerging Markets Benefit

Citigroup Inc. economists Don Hanna and Jurgen Michels called the summit agreement “a boon to emerging markets” in a note to clients yesterday.

Mexico said Wednesday it will seek $47 billion from the IMF under the Washington-based lender’s new Flexible Credit Line, which allows some countries to borrow money with no conditions.

Emerging-market stocks, bonds and currencies rallied yesterday on speculation other developing nations will follow Mexico’s lead. Gains in Polish, Czech and Brazilian stocks helped push the MSCI Emerging Markets Index up 5.6 percent to 613.07, the highest since Oct. 15.

In a bid to avoid another mistake of the depression era, G-20 leaders repeated an earlier pledge to avoid trade protectionism and beggar-thy-neighbor policies that could aggravate the decline in the global economy.

The Paris-based Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development predicted this week that global trade will shrink 13 percent this year as loss-ridden banks cut back on credit to exporters and importers.

Trade Finance

To help combat that, the G-20 said they will make at least $250 billion available in the next two years to support the finance of trade through export credit agencies and development banks such as the World Bank.

The summit took place amid speculation among investors that the deepest global recession in six decades may be abating. Data released yesterday showed orders placed with U.S. factories rose in February for the first time in seven months, U.K. house prices unexpectedly gained in March and Chinese manufacturing increased. Still, a report today is forecast to show U.S. unemployment at its highest in a quarter-century.

“If the economy turns more favorable, this meeting will probably be viewed as a milestone,” said C. Fred Bergsten, a former U.S. official and director of the Peterson Institute for International Economics in Washington.

The G-20 members are Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, France, Germany, India, Indonesia, Italy, Japan, South Korea, Mexico, Russia, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, Turkey, the U.S., the U.K. and the European Union. Officials from Spain and the Netherlands were also present.

To contact the reporters on this story: Rich Miller in Washington rmiller28@bloomberg.net; Simon Kennedy in Paris at Skennedy4@bloomberg.net

Last Updated: April 2, 2009 20:22 EDT

Source: http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=axEnb_LXw5yc&refer=home

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EU presidency: US economic plans ‘a way to hell’

2009/03/25 in E.U., Finance, Government, Obama, Politics, U.S. by John Adlai | Comments closed

(03-25) 06:10 PDT STRASBOURG, France (AP) –

A top European Union politician on Wednesday slammed U.S. plans to spend its way out of recession as “a way to hell.”

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President of the United States of Europa (Czech State Governor) Mirek Topolanek, whose state currently holds the EU presidency, told the European Parliament that President Barack Obama’s massive stimulus package and banking bailout “will undermine the stability of the global financial market.”

A day after his government collapsed because of a parliamentary vote of no-confidence, Topolanek took the EU presidency on a collision course with Washington over how to deal with the global economic recession.

Most European leaders favor tighter financial regulation, while the U.S. has been pushing for larger economic stimulus plans.

Topolanek’s comments are the strongest criticism so far from a European leader as the 27-nation bloc bristles from recent U.S. criticism that it is not spending enough to stimulate demand.

They also pave the way for a stormy summit next week in London between leaders of the Group of 20 industrialized countries.

The host of the summit, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, praised Obama on Tuesday for his willingness to work with Europe on reforming the global economy in the run-up to the G-20 summit.

The United States plans to spend heavily to try and lift its economy out of recession with a $787 billion economic stimulus plan of tax rebates, health and welfare benefits, as well as extra energy and infrastructure spending.

To encourage banks to lend again, the government will also pump $1 trillion into the financial system by buying up treasury bonds and mortgage securities in an effort to clear some of the “toxic assets” — devalued and untradeable assets — from banks’ balance sheets.

Topolanek bluntly said that “the United States did not take the right path.”.

He slammed the U.S.’ widening budget deficit and protectionist trade measures — such as the “Buy America” — and said that “all of these steps, these combinations and permanency is the way to hell.”

“We need to read the history books and the lessons of history and the biggest success of the (EU) is the refusal to go this way,” he said.

“Americans will need liquidity to finance all their measures and they will balance this with the sale of their bonds but this will undermine the stability of the global financial market,” said Topolanek.

Obama insisted Tuesday that his massive budget proposal is moving the nation down the right path and will help the ailing economy grow again. “This budget is inseparable from this recovery,” he said, “because it is what lays the foundation for a secure and lasting prosperity.”

Obama also claimed early progress in his aggressive campaign to lead the United States out of its worst economic crisis in 70 years and declared that despite obstacles ahead, the U.S. is “moving in the right direction.”

Source: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2009/03/25/financial/f041709D32.DTL&feed=rss.business

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And now a message from the President of the United States of Europa

2009/03/10 in E.U., Elections, Eurasia, Government, Politics by ciaccimon

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The way they vote…

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The way you vote…

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After that feeling of joy!

Source: http://www.europarl.europa.eu/elections2009/default.htm?language=EN

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Clinton sees US and EU leading the world

2009/03/10 in E.U., Eurasia, Globalization, Government, U.S. by John Adlai | Comments closed

There is a leadership crisis in the world and America and the European Union must take the lead in addressing it, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton told an audience of young Europeans in Parliament today (6 March).

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In an invitation-only event entitled ‘The next generation takes the floor’, at which most participants appeared to be young employees or trainees of the EU institutions, Clinton complimented Europe on its integration, calling it an “extraordinary international effort”.

“Europe today is viewed by many as a miracle,” said Clinton, stressing that the EU is experiencing its “longest period of peace since the Roman Empire,” while the countries of the Union have never been more prosperous or more secure.

Speaking for her country, the head of the US diplomacy insisted that despite difficult problems ahead, the new administration is optimistic and “up to the task”.

Parliament President Hans-Gert Pöttering, who described Clinton as a “leader of vision” at a time that the world needs such leaders, also hinted that a new era is beginning in EU-US relations.

“Let us work as equal partners to build a better future,” Pöttering said.

In a carefully staged question-and-answer session, Clinton touched upon climate change, the fight against terrorism, the situation in the Middle East, relations with Russia, Darfur and gay rights.

The US secretary of state recognised that it will be difficult to get China, India, Indonesia and other countries to back an agreement at UN climate change talks in Copenhagen in December.

Moving on to a pet topics of the Bush administration, Clinton said her country’s ambition is to move towards a time when there is no fertile ground for terrorism, and clearly spoke in favour of establishing a viable Palestinian state. As for the situation in Africa, she stressed the need to build capacities within the continent that are capable of solving its many problems.

As for Russia, Clinton expressed satisfaction with yesterday’s decision by NATO to “re-energise” the NATO-Russia Council, which was frozen following the brief war in Georgia in August 2008.

She added that the US and Russia still strongly disagree on some areas, mentioning Georgia, the use by Moscow of energy “as a tool for intimidation” and the assumption by Russia that it has “spheres of influence” or veto rights over the NATO membership candidacies of Ukraine and Georgia.

Source: http://www.euractiv.com/en/opinion/clinton-sees-us-eu-leading-world/article-180031

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