Crisis-hit Europeans see cruel joke in EU Nobel

Karolina Tagaris
ATHENS | Fri Oct 12, 2012
http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/10/12/nobel-eu-reaction-idUSL5E8LCHVA20121012

"Is this a joke?" said Chrisoula Panagiotidi, 36, an Athens beautician, laughing derisively upon hearing that the European Union had won the Nobel Peace Prize.

Three days ago she lost her job, becoming one of the one-in-four Greeks who is unemployed in the fifth year of a biting recession. Told it was no joke at all, her incredulity quickly turned to disgust.

"It mocks us and what we are going through right now," she said. "All it will do is infuriate people here."

Across a continent where the EU's policies are blamed for deepening the worst economic crisis in living memory, many Europeans said they were simply baffled by the prize. Others were outraged.

"I can't get my head around it. They'd be last on my list. It's such a bland and inert organisation," said Philip Deane, 48, an IT consultant walking along the River Liffey in Dublin.

"Given the state of the economy, the timing is really, really bad."

Ireland, like Greece, has been forced to turn to the European Union and IMF for a financial bailout, delivered in the framework of a strict austerity programme.

Mariana Fotiou, 69, an Athens lottery ticket vendor was furious.

"It makes me so angry. We have a financial war on, don't they realise that? The only morale it will boost is Merkel's," she said, referring to the German chancellor, whose insistence on austerity measures as the price for aid has made her a hate figure in Greece.

Earlier this week Merkel visited Athens. Protesters burned Nazi flags and clashed with police in fury at her presence.

The irony of awarding the prize at a time when the EU is being pilloried in several European capitals, occasionally by crowds of rioters, was not lost on the Nobel Committee itself.

"The EU is currently undergoing grave economic difficulties and considerable social unrest. The Norwegian Nobel Committee wishes to focus on what it sees as the EU's most important result: the successful struggle for peace and reconciliation and for democracy and human rights," said Nobel Committee chairman Thorbjoern Jagland in announcing the award in Oslo.

Ed Balls, a politician from the opposition British Labour Party, joked at a panel discussion in Dublin: "They'll be cheering in Athens tonight, won't they."

"SUFFERING BUT NOT DYING"

Yet even in countries hard hit by the tough economic times, there were still many people who said they understood the logic of awarding a prize to an organisation credited with helping maintain peace for more than half a century on a continent that was ripped apart in two world wars.

"It's a good thing," said 48-year-old Howard Spilane in Ireland, where unemployment has tripled since the crisis hit.

"Europe's in a crisis, but compared to the wars - even compared to the Cold War - Europe is in a better place. People are suffering, but they are not dying. On balance they have achieved a lot."

Such warm responses were also common in parts of Eastern Europe, where many prize membership in the EU as a badge of hard-won European identity and a bulwark against a return of Communist-era totalitarianism.

"I am glad of it, although I do find it strange," said Andras Kocsis, an 18-year-old student in Budapest, the Hungarian capital. "I think it's right, because indeed the EU does a lot for the rights of the people."

But even in the ex-Communist countries, praise was far from universal for an organisation that many have come to resent.

Petr Hajek, deputy head of the office of Czech President Vaclav Klaus, who once supported the EU but has since turned against it, said the EU lacked "democratic legitimacy" and was contributing to "animosity among nations".

"Freedom and democracy are shivering in the corner similar to the way it was in the regimes we experienced in the 20th century in Europe," he said.

In Bosnia, which hopes to join the bloc but still remembers how a hesitant and divided EU stood by during its 1992-95 war, Kada Hotic called the award "shameful". Her son, husband and two brothers were among 8,000 Muslim men and boys massacred by Bosnian Serb forces in 1995.

"The EU had an obligation to protect minorities in Europe but was incapable or unwilling to protect Muslims in Bosnia and even today it is doing so little to prevent conflicts across the world," she said.

Economic Doomsday Quote of the Week

"The world is watching Europe, waiting upon a solution. It’s not just the euro that’s at stake. If the euro fails, so too does the 27-nation European Union. Bank lending would freeze, stock markets would likely crash, and Europe’s economies would follow. Nations in the euro-zone would see their economic output decline, though temporarily, by as much as 50%, according to UBS forecasters. That economic meltdown would then spread to the U.S. and Asia, who would find themselves caught up in the credit freeze while their exports to Europe would collapse."
Source:

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/Euro-Finance-Ministers-wscheats-3060132077.html

Thanks to NaturalNews.com for the tipoff

Transaction Tax in EU?

From Business Week:

The European Union proposed a financial-transactions tax that would take effect in 2014 and raise about 57 billion euros ($78 billion) a year, prompting renewed opposition from the U.K.

The proposal would apply a tax of 0.1 percent on trading of stocks and bonds, with a 0.01 percent rate for derivatives contracts, the European Commission, the EU executive, said today in Brussels. Those minimum rates would apply throughout the 27- nation bloc. The measure would deliver “a fair contribution from the financial sector,” EU Tax Commissioner Algirdas Semeta said.

European governments are split over the merits of a transactions tax, while British banks warn that an EU-only measure would drive business to other regions. The U.K., home to Europe’s biggest financial center, has opposed the move, which requires the unanimous support of all EU countries. The U.K. Treasury reiterated today that such a levy would need to apply globally.

EU Proposes Financial-Transactions Tax to Start in 2014
September 28, 2011
Rebecca Christie
http://www.businessweek.com/news/2011-09-28/eu-proposes-financial-transactions-tax-to-start-in-2014.html

New Economic Order in Europe

From HuffPo:

The leaders of France and Germany called Tuesday for greater economic discipline and unity among European nations but declined to take immediate financial measures seen by many investors as the only way to halt the continent's spiraling debt crisis.

The Dow Jones industrial average fell, the euro slid against the dollar and key European markets edged down in off-hour trading after Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany and French President Nicolas Sarkozy announced the results of their emergency talks in Paris.

Sarkozy called for a "new economic government" for Europe that would meet at least twice a year with European Union President Herman Van Rompuy as its head, but he offered few other details or indications that the body would have real power.

Merkel and Sarkozy also called for all euro zone nations to enact constitutional amendments requiring balanced budgets. They said they want the process completed by the summer of 2012, but it would almost certainly run into protracted political difficulties in many countries.

Both leaders said the moment was not right to replace 17 government bonds with a single one allowing weaker economies to borrow in cooperation with the powerhouse economies of France and Germany. A growing number of experts are calling for the eurobond as a way to prevent the unaffordable interest rates that have driven Greece, Ireland, and Portugal to seek bailouts from the eurozone countries and the International Monetary Fund.

New figures show slowing French and German growth, and the German government fears it would face higher borrowing costs and more risks if it had to borrow jointly with financially shaky nations.

"We have exactly the same position on euro bonds," Sarkozy said. "One day we could imagine them, but at the end of a process of European integration, not at the beginning."

The Dow fell as many as 190 points shortly after 1 p.m. in New York, a sign of clear market disappointment with the lack of immediate action.

Merkel and Sarkozy also said they did not want to increase the size of the EU's 440 billion euro rescue fund, which may have to take over a massive, multibillion euro European Central Bank program to support the prices of Spanish and Italian bonds by buying them up on the open market. The ECB spent 22 billion euros ($32 billion) in the first week of the program alone and says it wants to hand off that responsibility in coming months to the rescue fund, or European Financial Stability Facility...

Investors may be concerned about how the euro bloc will put in place what its leaders have suggested and how a proposed tax on financial transactions may effect demand for European assets, said David Gilmore of Foreign Exchange Analytics in Essex, Connecticut.

"On the surface, it sounds very bold, a federal `eurozone,'" Gilmore said. "The practical part still seems, to me anyway, to be a pipe dream."

He said the plan to form a deeper fiscal union among the 17 countries using the euro "made the euro credible," but governments might not want to surrender their rights to set tax and budget policies...

Merkel, Sarkozy Propose Eurozone Government
GREG KELLER and JUERGEN BAETZ
08/16/11
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/08/16/merkel-sarkozy-eurozone-government_n_928436.html

Democracy for EU Prez?

Prez election in Europe are getting interesting too:
The European Parliament took a first step on Tuesday towards half a billion Europeans directly electing the EU president, with a vote to introduce a second ballot from which the leader would emerge.

The parliament's constitutional affairs committee wants voters to pick 25 super MEPs from an EU-wide list of candidates

Come its next elections in 2014, the parliament's constitutional affairs committee wants voters across the 27 European Union states to pick 751 constituency MEPs in essentially national contests, but now also 25 super MEPs from an EU-wide list of candidates.

The bill's sponsor, Liberal Democrat MEP Andrew Duff, told AFP on Tuesday that his plans are based in no small part on experience in Scotland, where a second, regional list effectively decides the identity of its head of government...

First step towards 'directly elected EU president'
19 Apr 2011
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/eu/8461420/First-step-towards-directly-elected-EU-president.html

Nobel Laureate Stiglitz Says EU Austerity Is Wrong Bet

http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2010/09/07-5

Published on Tuesday, September 7, 2010 by Reuters
Nobel Laureate Stiglitz Says EU Austerity Is Wrong Bet

BUDAPEST - The European Union will prolong the global downturn if policymakers in the bloc's big economies insist on austerity measures to cut budget deficits, Nobel Prize winning economist Joseph Stiglitz said on Tuesday.

Stiglitz, winner of the Nobel Prize for Economics in 2001, said austerity as a policy to end the global crisis was a 'disaster', adding that Europe was heading towards more economic difficulties if politicians meant what they say when they promised to cut back spending rather than just trying to calm down markets. Stiglitz, winner of the Nobel Prize for Economics in 2001, said austerity as a policy to end the global crisis was a 'disaster', adding that Europe was heading towards more economic difficulties if politicians meant what they say when they promised to cut back spending rather than just trying to calm down markets.

'If that (austerity) happens I think it is likely that the economic downturn will last far longer and human suffering will be all the greater,' he said.

Historical evidence showed that increased state spending rather than austerity measures can help economies emerge from recession, he said.

'In spite of all that evidence there is a drumbeat, particularly from many of the economists who were responsible for the crisis ... to focus on austerity,' Stiglitz told reporters on the sidelines of a conference.

He said the example of Ireland, a small economy, showed that austerity leads to declining output, rising unemployment and high bond spreads, instead of renewed investor.

'I feel sorry for the Irish people who have to suffer from this policy ... but it doesn't have global or European consequences,' he said.

'But if the UK, Germany or other countries do it, then it is going to have systemic consequences for Europe and the whole world,' he added.

Stiglitz said the real question Europe and the world faced was not whether the global economy was on track to a double dip.

'From the perspective of the world, or workers, there is very little difference between growth of a quarter point of a percent and a decline of a quarter point of a percent,' he said.

'What workers care about is if growth will be strong enough to reduce the high level of unemployment in the U.S. or Europe.'

(Reporting by Sandor Peto; Editing by Susan Fenton)

Rally of '09 the Last Like That in Our Lifetime: Strategist

http://www.cnbc.com/id/37728387
Rally of '09 the Last Like That in Our Lifetime: Strategist
Friday, 18 Jun 2010

Last year's stock-market rally won't be repeated for the foreseeable future and likely not for decades, Sean Corrigan, chief investment strategist at Diapason Commodities Management, told CNBC Friday.

In addition, the European Union's decision to publish stress test results on all of its banks is merely "window dressing," Corrigan said.

"I can see clear signs that the second half is going to produce much less positive headlines," he said. "We've already had an enormous rally."

Looking at previous economic collapses in the 1920s and 1930s, "the first 12-to-15 months a huge rally occurred when the monetary spigots were turned back on and people got back into the market and thereafter it became much more choppy," Corrigan added.

"You're not going to see what we saw last year," Corrigan said. "I think we've probably seen that for our lives unless we destroy the monetary system and stocks roar away on that basis."

'Window Dressing'

The EU's move to present stress-test results is only adding redundant regulation, Corrigan said.

"Do banks not present quarterly accounts, are there not stock market regulators and banking regulators, why do we not know what's on their balance sheets?" he said. "Because there was complicity at the top to hide the problems two years ago."

"I think this is window dressing," Corrigan said. "I don't see what's in this that's not in existing regulation, which should have been applied not just to the banks but to every other company."

Greek protestors unfurl banners on Acropolis

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/greece/7675761/Greek-protestors-unfurl-banners-on-Acropolis.html

Greek protestors unfurl banners on Acropolis
Greek protesters have unfurled banners over the walls of the Acropolis attacking new austerity measures imposed as a condition of an international bailout.
04 May 2010

About 100 protesters from the Greek Communist Party cut through locks on the gates of the major tourist attraction shortly after dawn and unfurled the banners in Greek and English reading: "Peoples of Europe - Rise Up."

Police did not intervene as the protesters carrying red flags stood beside the ancient Parthenon, next to the two large banners. The demonstrators did not attempt to prevent tourists from visiting the site.

Greece's government announced sweeping spending cuts worth 30 billion euros through 2012, in order to secure a rescue package of loans from the International Monetary Fund and the other 15 European Union countries using the euro.

The new measures will result in deeper cuts in pensions and public servants' pay, and a new rise in consumer taxes.

Public servants, including state school teachers and hospital workers, began a 48-hour strike Tuesday, with protest marches planned later today.

Workers in the private sector are due to join them on Wednesday for a nationwide general strike that is expected to shut down all services across the country, grounding flights and halting public transport. Shop owners have said they will also walk off the job and close their businesses for the day.

Union leaders say the cuts target low-income Greeks.

"There are other things the (government) can do, before taking money from a pensioner who earns 500 euros a month," Spyros Papaspyros, leader of the public servants' union ADEDY, told private Mega television.

Yesterday, protesting school teachers forced their way into Greece's state television building, disrupting programming.

The euro's bitter-sweet triumph at 10

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/comment/ambroseevans_pritchard/4045210/The-euros-bitter-sweet-triumph-at-10.html

The euro's bitter-sweet triumph at 10
If the purpose of the euro is to confront US dollar hegemony and turn the European Union into a monetary superpower, it is a signal triumph. But politicians should be careful what they wish for.
By Ambrose Evans-Pritchard
01 Jan 2009

On its tenth birthday, the single currency is an unquestioned part of daily life for 330m people in sixteen states (Slovakia joins on January 1st), spreading almost as widely as Rome's denarius -- the first truly Pan-European coin.

There has been no "tissue rejection" by the public, even if Eurobarometer data shows that the euro is more accepted than loved. Shoppers blame it - unfairly -- for inflation. Half the French still think in francs. Oddly, a slew of regional currencies have begun to circulate in German regions since the launch of EMU. Sociologists are baffled.

Market eagerness to push the euro to sterling parity, and to defiant highs against the dollar, yuan, rouble, and rupee, is an undeniable stamp of confidence. But success is bitter-sweet. The eurozone itself is in deep recession. A currency surge at this juncture is a cruel blow for export industry. The full damage will hit in late 2009 as the time-lag effects work their curse.

The point of monetary union -- at least for Paris -- was to stop this happening. EMU was supposed to shield Europe against the fall-out from Anglo-Saxon "casino capitalism" and to ensure a stable currency.

Stable it is not. The Élysée never imagined that it would be a currency on steroids, spiking so high that it hollows out the French industrial core and drives Airbus to the brink. As President Nicolas Sarkozy put it in a moment of fury, "we didn't create the euro so that we could no longer build a single aircraft in Europe".

Otmar Issing, ex-High priest of the European Central Bank, says half the states of West Europe would now be facing currency storms akin to the early 1990s were it not for the fortress strength of EMU.

The yield spreads on Italian, Greek, Portuguese, Spanish, Austrian, and Irish debt would be even higher than they are already, amplifying the effects of the credit crunch and probably making it too dangerous for governments even to think of fiscal rescue plans. "People do not seem aware of this. They are now taking the advantages of the euro for granted," he said.

This is true in one sense, although the 1990s ructions stemmed from a fixed link to the D-Mark, a recipe for disaster. But such claims and counter-claims hardly touch on the deeper question of whether EMU is a viable undertaking over the long run -- or an "optimal currency area" (OCA) in economic jargon. Ten years on, the controversy rages. Both sides have enough evidence to say with equal vehemence, "I told you so". It all depends which part of the picture you look at.

Let us not forget that the euro is a revolutionary construct. Never before have sovereign states of equal weight agreed to abolish their currencies -- some dating back to the Middle Ages -- and tied their destiny to a supranational bank.

The franc -- minted in 1360 to celebrate the end of Jean Le Bon's captivity in England -- evoked France itself, and French voters were not easily persuaded to give it up. The Maastricht Treaty passed by a wafer-thin margin in September 1992. We will never know how the German people would have voted if allowed to decide on the fate of their beloved D-Mark, the symbol of national renewal.

Currency unions come and go, typically revolving around one dominant power. The euro is a different animal. It has no political anchor. It is a leap into the unknown without a state, treasury, debt union, or EU social security net to back it up.

For arch-critics at Germany's universities, the decision to press ahead with the euro before the creation of a full-fledged EU state was to put the cart before the horse. America had forged its union before issuing a currency, as had 19th century Germany.

This is the bigger question to be tested over the euro's second decade. Currency unions can mask risk for a while. They shield sinners long enough to let imbalances get out of hand, storing up trouble for a more traumatic crisis later.

Eurosceptics say this is exactly what is happening. The gap between North and South has grown ever wider as Europe's nations hold true to type, and as the ECB's one-size-fits-all policy has vastly different effects on different cultures. Italy has lost 40pc in labour cost competitiveness against Germany since the currencies were fixed in 1995, and Spain has lost about 35pc.

The reasons are complex, rooted in the wage-bargaining structures, the protected guilds, and the banking systems of countries refusing to give up their traditions. In Spain, 70pc of wages are indexed to inflation, and over 98pc of mortgages are linked to floating Euribor. Is it any wonder that Spain's property boom mushroomed out of control when the ECB held rates at 2pc (to help Germany, then in trouble)?

Latin Bloc states could have taken drastic steps to make their economies more compatible with Germany. They failed to do -- despite heroic efforts by officials, especially at the Bank of Spain -- because the political class never understood the implications of EMU. Nor did Germany's leaders, for that matter. The shining exception is Finland.

Current accounts tell the sorry tale. Germany has a surplus near 7pc of GDP, while deficits have reached 10pc in Spain and Portugal, and 14pc in Greece. Club Med extravagance can continue only as long as foreign investors are willing to plug the gaps with fresh capital. Italy's debt headache is different, but no less serious. As Europe's most indebted state, it must roll over €200bn of bonds this year in hostile markets.

It will not be easy for victims to claw back competitiveness within the constraints of monetary union. They will have to "deflate" wages relative to Northern Europe, but there lies the risk of a self-feeding debt trap.

We are shifting into the political realm in any case. Spain's unemployment has jumped from 8pc to 13pc in little over a year, and some analysts are predicting 18pc by 2010. When does civic patience snap? Nobody knows, but the ferocity of last month's riots in Greece is a warning.

As Europe's slump deepens this year we may find out if it matters whether or not the euro is a stateless currency. In dollar land, Washington disburses a fifth of GDP. A system of "fiscal transfers" automatically shifts stimulus from healthy regions to bust zones. This is how an 'OCA' self-adjusts. We may find out too whether euroland enjoys the solidarity of a nation, "all for one and one for all", when the chips are down. German body-language so far does not suggest that it does.

For now, the eurozone is basking in glory as the world's ultimate safe-haven. Icelanders are eyeing the currency longingly, and Denmark has paid a high price (two rate rises into the crisis) for its semi-detached role in the Exchange Rate Mechanism. The Poles are trying to rid themselves of the zloty as fast they can.

Berkeley Professor Barry Eichengreen says the euro is the "great winner" of this financial crisis, confounding those in the Milton Friedman camp who thought EMU would blow apart in the first bad storm. The nature of this banking drama has played -- unexpectedly -- to EMU's strengths, he argues.

Banks in European states outside EMU mostly lack a domestic currency used for international dealings, so they have borrowed in euros (and dollars). This has proved to be an Achilles Heel. "The implication is clear. National banking systems need a lender of last resort. In small countries, where a significant share of bank liabilities is in someone else's currency, the national central bank lacks this capacity. The only options are then to slap draconian controls on the banking system or join the euro area," he says.

His verdict is that every country except perhaps Britain will have to join Euroland. "The writing is on the wall", he said.

So the debate goes on. For defenders of sterling - and the Swedish and Norwegian crowns -- the precipitous slide against the euro over recent months is broadly a boon, unless you work in the travel industry, or ski a lot. It acts as a shock absorber at a crucial moment, helping to cushion the economy against debt deflation.

Export profits may hold up long enough to give a lifeline to UK manufacturing and service firms as banks shut off credit lines. It is the difference between survival and failure for thousands of healthy companies. This is what an independent currency is for. It preserved social stability in 1931 when Britain left the Gold Standard, and again in 1992 on leaving the ERM (from which the pound later roared back to a higher level, at the appropriate time).

We are too close to events to draw any definitive conclusions about the workings of EMU or the crash in sterling. There will be many twists and turns before this great debacle has played itself out across the world.

When the Chinese leader Chou-en-Lai was asked what he thought about the French Revolution, he replied "too soon to tell". To judge the euro revolution on just a decade is frivolous.

Russian Professor Predicts End of U.S.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123051100709638419.html

DECEMBER 29, 2008
As if Things Weren't Bad Enough, Russian Professor Predicts End of U.S.
In Moscow, Igor Panarin's Forecasts Are All the Rage; America 'Disintegrates' in 2010
By ANDREW OSBORN

MOSCOW -- For a decade, Russian academic Igor Panarin has been predicting the U.S. will fall apart in 2010. For most of that time, he admits, few took his argument -- that an economic and moral collapse will trigger a civil war and the eventual breakup of the U.S. -- very seriously. Now he's found an eager audience: Russian state media.

In recent weeks, he's been interviewed as much as twice a day about his predictions. "It's a record," says Prof. Panarin. "But I think the attention is going to grow even stronger."

Prof. Panarin, 50 years old, is not a fringe figure. A former KGB analyst, he is dean of the Russian Foreign Ministry's academy for future diplomats. He is invited to Kremlin receptions, lectures students, publishes books, and appears in the media as an expert on U.S.-Russia relations.

But it's his bleak forecast for the U.S. that is music to the ears of the Kremlin, which in recent years has blamed Washington for everything from instability in the Middle East to the global financial crisis. Mr. Panarin's views also fit neatly with the Kremlin's narrative that Russia is returning to its rightful place on the world stage after the weakness of the 1990s, when many feared that the country would go economically and politically bankrupt and break into separate territories.

A polite and cheerful man with a buzz cut, Mr. Panarin insists he does not dislike Americans. But he warns that the outlook for them is dire.

"There's a 55-45% chance right now that disintegration will occur," he says. "One could rejoice in that process," he adds, poker-faced. "But if we're talking reasonably, it's not the best scenario -- for Russia." Though Russia would become more powerful on the global stage, he says, its economy would suffer because it currently depends heavily on the dollar and on trade with the U.S.

Mr. Panarin posits, in brief, that mass immigration, economic decline, and moral degradation will trigger a civil war next fall and the collapse of the dollar. Around the end of June 2010, or early July, he says, the U.S. will break into six pieces -- with Alaska reverting to Russian control.

In addition to increasing coverage in state media, which are tightly controlled by the Kremlin, Mr. Panarin's ideas are now being widely discussed among local experts. He presented his theory at a recent roundtable discussion at the Foreign Ministry. The country's top international relations school has hosted him as a keynote speaker. During an appearance on the state TV channel Rossiya, the station cut between his comments and TV footage of lines at soup kitchens and crowds of homeless people in the U.S. The professor has also been featured on the Kremlin's English-language propaganda channel, Russia Today.

Mr. Panarin's apocalyptic vision "reflects a very pronounced degree of anti-Americanism in Russia today," says Vladimir Pozner, a prominent TV journalist in Russia. "It's much stronger than it was in the Soviet Union."
Mr. Pozner and other Russian commentators and experts on the U.S. dismiss Mr. Panarin's predictions. "Crazy ideas are not usually discussed by serious people," says Sergei Rogov, director of the government-run Institute for U.S. and Canadian Studies, who thinks Mr. Panarin's theories don't hold water.

Mr. Panarin's résumé includes many years in the Soviet KGB, an experience shared by other top Russian officials. His office, in downtown Moscow, shows his national pride, with pennants on the wall bearing the emblem of the FSB, the KGB's successor agency. It is also full of statuettes of eagles; a double-headed eagle was the symbol of czarist Russia.

The professor says he began his career in the KGB in 1976. In post-Soviet Russia, he got a doctorate in political science, studied U.S. economics, and worked for FAPSI, then the Russian equivalent of the U.S. National Security Agency. He says he did strategy forecasts for then-President Boris Yeltsin, adding that the details are "classified."

In September 1998, he attended a conference in Linz, Austria, devoted to information warfare, the use of data to get an edge over a rival. It was there, in front of 400 fellow delegates, that he first presented his theory about the collapse of the U.S. in 2010.

"When I pushed the button on my computer and the map of the United States disintegrated, hundreds of people cried out in surprise," he remembers. He says most in the audience were skeptical. "They didn't believe me."

At the end of the presentation, he says many delegates asked him to autograph copies of the map showing a dismembered U.S.

He based the forecast on classified data supplied to him by FAPSI analysts, he says. He predicts that economic, financial and demographic trends will provoke a political and social crisis in the U.S. When the going gets tough, he says, wealthier states will withhold funds from the federal government and effectively secede from the union. Social unrest up to and including a civil war will follow. The U.S. will then split along ethnic lines, and foreign powers will move in.

California will form the nucleus of what he calls "The Californian Republic," and will be part of China or under Chinese influence. Texas will be the heart of "The Texas Republic," a cluster of states that will go to Mexico or fall under Mexican influence. Washington, D.C., and New York will be part of an "Atlantic America" that may join the European Union. Canada will grab a group of Northern states Prof. Panarin calls "The Central North American Republic." Hawaii, he suggests, will be a protectorate of Japan or China, and Alaska will be subsumed into Russia.

"It would be reasonable for Russia to lay claim to Alaska; it was part of the Russian Empire for a long time." A framed satellite image of the Bering Strait that separates Alaska from Russia like a thread hangs from his office wall. "It's not there for no reason," he says with a sly grin.

Interest in his forecast revived this fall when he published an article in Izvestia, one of Russia's biggest national dailies. In it, he reiterated his theory, called U.S. foreign debt "a pyramid scheme," and predicted China and Russia would usurp Washington's role as a global financial regulator.

Americans hope President-elect Barack Obama "can work miracles," he wrote. "But when spring comes, it will be clear that there are no miracles."

The article prompted a question about the White House's reaction to Prof. Panarin's forecast at a December news conference. "I'll have to decline to comment," spokeswoman Dana Perino said amid much laughter.

For Prof. Panarin, Ms. Perino's response was significant. "The way the answer was phrased was an indication that my views are being listened to very carefully," he says.

The professor says he's convinced that people are taking his theory more seriously. People like him have forecast similar cataclysms before, he says, and been right. He cites French political scientist Emmanuel Todd. Mr. Todd is famous for having rightly forecast the demise of the Soviet Union -- 15 years beforehand. "When he forecast the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1976, people laughed at him," says Prof. Panarin.

US balks at backing condemnation of anti-gay laws

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5h1rNjQnbi3UUwYn7JGfk4pLIO6DgD955IQK80

US balks at backing condemnation of anti-gay laws
By DAVID CRARY
12-19-8

UNITED NATIONS (AP) — Alone among major Western nations, the United States has refused to sign a declaration presented Thursday at the United Nations calling for worldwide decriminalization of homosexuality.

In all, 66 of the U.N.'s 192 member countries signed the nonbinding declaration — which backers called a historic step to push the General Assembly to deal more forthrightly with any-gay discrimination. More than 70 U.N. members outlaw homosexuality, and in several of them homosexual acts can be punished by execution.

Co-sponsored by France and the Netherlands, the declaration was signed by all 27 European Union members, as well as Japan, Australia, Mexico and three dozen other countries. There was broad opposition from Muslim nations, and the United States refused to sign, indicating that some parts of the declaration raised legal questions that needed further review.

"It's disappointing," said Rama Yade, France's human rights minister, of the U.S. position — which she described as in contradiction with America's long tradition as a defender of human rights.

According to some of the declaration's backers, U.S. officials expressed concern in private talks that some parts of the declaration might be problematic in committing the federal government on matters that fall under state jurisdiction. In numerous states, landlords and private employers are allowed to discriminate on the basis of sexual orientation; on the federal level, gays are not allowed to serve openly in the military.

Carolyn Vadino, a spokeswoman for the U.S. mission to the U.N., stressed that the United States — despite its unwillingness to sign — condemned any human rights violations related to sexual orientation.

Gay rights activists nonetheless were angered by the U.S. position.

"It's an appalling stance — to not join with other countries that are standing up and calling for decriminalization of homosexuality," said Paula Ettelbrick, executive director of the International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission.

She expressed hope that the U.S. position might change after President-elect Barack Obama takes office in January.

Also denouncing the U.S. stance was Richard Grenell, who until two months ago had been the chief spokesman for the U.S. mission to the U.N.

"It is ridiculous to suggest that there are legal reasons why we can't support this resolution — common sense says we should be the leader in making sure other governments are granting more freedoms for their people, not less," said Grenell, who described himself as a gay Republican. "The U.S. lack of support on this issue only dims our once bright beacon of hope and freedom for those who are persecuted and oppressed."

More than 50 countries opposed to the declaration, including members of the Organization of the Islamic Conference, issued a joint statement Thursday criticizing the initiative as an unwarranted attempt to give special prominence to gays and lesbians. The statement suggested that protecting sexual orientation could lead to "the social normalization and possibly the legalization of deplorable acts" such as pedophilia and incest.

The declaration also has been opposed by the Vatican, a stance which prompted a protest in Rome earlier this month.

A Vatican spokesman, the Rev. Federico Lombardi, said the Roman Catholic Church opposed the death penalty and other harsh repression of gays and lesbians, but he expressed concern that the declaration would be used as pressure against those who believe marriage rights should not be extended to gays.

A new Vatican statement, issued Thursday, endorsed the call to end criminal penalties against gays, but said that overall the declaration "gives rise to uncertainty in the law and challenges existing human norms."

The European nations backing the declaration waged their campaign in conjunction with the 60th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

The Dutch foreign affairs minister, Maxime Verhagen, said countries that endorsed that 1948 document had no right to carve out exceptions based on religion or culture that allowed discrimination against gays.

"Human rights apply to all people in all places at all times," he said. "I will not accept any excuse."

He acknowledged that the new declaration had only symbolic import, but said it marked the first time such a large number of nations had raised the cause of gay rights in the context of General Assembly proceedings.

"This statement aims to make debate commonplace," he said. "It is not meant to be a source of division, but to eliminate the taboo that surrounds the issue."

Sarkozy under attack after EU president proposal

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/france/3254628/Nicolas-Sarkozy-under-attack-after-EU-president-proposal.html

Nicolas Sarkozy under attack after EU president proposal
Nicolas Sarkozy has been accused of making a power grab to install himself as president of the European Union, a post that no longer exists after the Irish rejected the Lisbon Treaty in June.
25 Oct 2008

The French president, who holds the EU's rotating six month presidency until the end of December, has dominated the international stage following the Russian invasion of Georgia in August and the global financial crisis in recent weeks.

But he has dismayed Brussels diplomats and angered the Czech Republic, which takes over the EU presidency in January, by suggesting that countries belonging to the euro, with an invitation extended to Britain, should form an emergency "economic government" with President Sarkozy at its head.

"What is important is that the impetus, the energy of the French EU presidency remains," said Jean-Pierre Jouyet, French Europe minister, in defence of the plan.

"Do we want to return to business as usual? Or do we want to capitalise on the impetus?"

Alexandr Vondra, the Czech vice-prime minister, has criticised Mr Sarkozy's plans to extend his time at the head of the EU into next year.

"Any speculations on extension of the current presidency are groundless and unacceptable," he said.

"Nobody can take the presidency away from the Czech Republic. There are formal rules of the game which cannot be changed without the consent of everyone. No such new rules in the EU primary law have been approved."

The Lisbon Treaty created the post of the EU president, a job for which, until Ireland's referendum rejection in June, Tony Blair, the former Prime Minister, was the front-runner.

One Brussels diplomat, from a small EU member state, said: "Mr Sarkozy is trying to become, by the back door, President of the EU. It also seems he wants to be President of France at the same time."

Mr Sarkozy has proposed regular summits of the EU's 15 euro-zone countries, meeting in a series of 2009 summits of heads and state and government, to deal with a looming recession and the economic fall out of the financial crisis.

Gordon Brown, the leader of the EU's second biggest ecoomy, would also be invited to attend the meetings, following his presence at the first ever Eurogroup summit in Paris on October 12.

Mr Vondra admitted that non-euro members, such as the Czech Republic, "will not be able to prevent" the summits but has attacked the move as divisive.

"It would not be a wise move but one which would divide EU rather then unify it. Bypass is a method used to cure an heart attack, but is not a suitable method for cooperation within the EU. The EU hopefully, does not suffer from heart attacks," he said.

The French plan also risks a serious rift with Germany because Berlin is a staunch defender of Jean-Claude Juncker, prime minister and finance minister of Luxembourg, who currently chairs meetings of Eurogroup economic ministers.

A German government spokesman said: "The natural chairman of such a group would be the Luxembourg Prime Minister and Finance Minister Jean-Claude Juncker."

EU diplomats have suggested that Mr Sarkozy is trying to "soap the plank" for Mr Juncker by accusing Luxembourg's banking secrecy rules as constituting a tax haven.

"France is not a greater example of financial morality than Luxembourg," he said.

E.U. weighs Olympic boycott over Tibet

http://www.csmonitor.com/2008/0327/p04s01-woeu.html

from the March 27, 2008 edition
E.U. weighs Olympic boycott over Tibet
The European Union meets Friday to discuss ties to China after the unrest in Tibet.
By Robert Marquand Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor
Paris

If the government of China hopes the world will go for its line on Tibet and the nefarious Dalai Lama and his purported "clique" – Europe isn't buying it.

The response to the Tibetan crisis in London, Paris, and Berlin, rather, is a call for "dialogue" between China and the exiled Tibetan leader, and"restraint" by Beijing.

A boycott of the opening ceremony of the 2008 Olympic Games is being discussed as a leverage point in Austria, Belgium, Britain, and France – to be determined by how China handles the frustrations of its Tibetan minority.

French President Nicolas Sarkozy has "left open the option" of boycotting the ceremony, Germany has blocked talks with China on economic development, and Britain's foreign secretary, David Miliband, says that Tibet demonstrations will be authorized as the Olympic torch is carried through London on April 6.

Prince Charles, a friend of the Dalai Lama, had already decided in January not to attend the opening ceremony, he said, in a letter to a human rights group.

Europeans have long had a fascination with and sympathy for the Himalayan region and its Buddhist spiritual traditions – and the Dalai Lama is a frequent visitor to the Continent.

This Friday, Europe's foreign ministers meet in Slovenia, which holds the rotating presidency of the EU, to adopt a common position on relations with Beijing and "the suffering of Tibet," as French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner describes it.

The question in Slovenia is how to balance appreciation for the progress China has made with concern about the heavy handed tactics of an unelected government that has long eschewed any dialogue with those disagreeing with it. Most European states also have significant business interests in China.

While no European Union state is preparing to boycott the 2008 Games – "Let's not be more Tibetan than the Dalai Lama," who did not advocate boycott, says Mr. Kouchner – there is a general revulsion at the scenes out of Tibet, and at what is seen as an overheated Chinese propaganda effort to demonize the Dalai Lama and hold him responsible for violence.

In a clear rebuke to the Chinese position on Dalai Lama, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown plans to meet the spiritual leader in May, and the Dalai Lama was invited to speak at a conference in Nantes, France, during the games in August.

As the British Foreign Office issued a human rights report critical of China this week, Mr. Miliband said, "There needs to be mutual respect between all communities and sustained dialogue between the Dalai Lama and the Chinese authorities."

On May 22, the Dalai Lama will give a speech at the Royal Albert Hall in London.

On Wednesday Robert Menard, general secretary of Reporters Sans Frontières in Paris, the journalistic watchdog group, stated that Mr. Sarkozy should boycott the opening if China does not release 30 political prisoners who are on the lists of nearly every human rights group, and if foreign correspondents are continued to be banned from working in Tibet.

Mr. Menard's group raced to unfurl a Tibetan flag at the opening ceremony of the games in Athens this week while a Chinese official was speaking – an act widely criticized in the journalistic community, which has depended on RSF to report on press violations.

Prior to the China-Tibet dissatisfaction in Europe, many protest groups here demanded that China stop its support of the Sudanese government, widely regarded as a main culprit in the starvation and chaos in Darfur. The phrase "Genocide Olympics" has been used in Europe among human rights groups to describe the twinning of the Games with China's policy toward Sudan.

UN Security Council meets on Kosovo

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080218/ap_on_re_eu/un_kosovo

UN Security Council meets on Kosovo
By JOHN HEILPRIN, Associated Press Writer
Mon Feb 18, 2008

Russia tried to block Kosovo's independence during a closed-door emergency session of the U.N. Security Council on Sunday, saying it is deeply concerned about the safety of Serbs living in the territory.

The discussion of the 15-member council continued to expose divisions among members on the future of Kosovo. Russia backs its close ally Serbia, while the United States, Britain, France and other European Union members support Kosovo's majority ethnic Albanians.

China, a veto-wielding U.N. Security Council member that had close ties with the Yugoslav government of Slobodan Milosevic, expressed its "deep concern" Monday over Kosovo's declaration and called on the province to reach a "proper solution through negotiations" with Serbia.

The council met at the request of Serbia and Russia, which argue that Kosovo's declaration of independence from Serbia made earlier Sunday violates a 1999 council resolution that authorizes the U.N. to administer the territory.

The session got off to a rocky start; shortly after it began, it had to be suspended for a couple hours because of a lack of interpreters.

Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said Serbia's president told him that Kosovo's declaration carries no legal weight, while Kosovo's prime minister assured him he was committed to "equal opportunities and no discrimination" against anyone in Kosovo.

Ban urged all sides to "refrain from any actions or statements that could endanger peace, incite violence or jeopardize security in Kosovo and the region."

The Security Council resolution on Kosovo remains in force and the U.N. "will continue to implement its mandate in the light of the evolving circumstances," Ban said.

Before the session, Russia's U.N. Ambassador Vitaly Churkin said Moscow was "highly concerned" about Sunday's decision by Kosovo's parliament in Pristina "to declare unilateral independence of Kosovo."

The government said in a statement it regretted Kosovo's unilateral declaration and hoped it would not bring about fresh tension and conflict in the Balkan region. It said U.N.-backed principles of upholding the territorial integrity of developing nations must be supported.

The past Security Council resolution means the U.N. still runs Kosovo and "it is not obvious at all what could possibly be the legal basis for even considering" Kosovo's declaration of independence," Churkin said.

He specifically addressed the estimated 120,000 Serbs living in enclaves in Kosovo.

"Our concern is for the safety of the Serbs and other ethnic minorities in Kosovo," Churkin told reporters. "We'll strongly warn against any attempts at repressive measures, should Serbs in Kosovo decide not to comply with this unilateral proclamation of independence."

U.S. and other Western countries said there was little danger to the Serbs in Kosovo and that the 1999 resolution does not preclude Kosovo's independence.

"We've knocked it down over and over again. This is an unprecedented situation, it creates no precedent," Alejandro Wolff, the U.S. deputy ambassador to the U.N., told reporters before the session

Wolff said the United States is not "particularly concerned or sees no particular danger to be worried about" with regards to the safety of Serbs in Kosovo.

"We're pleased by the commitments made to respect for religious and ethnic communities in Kosovo," he told reporters. "We're very much pleased that the declaration also reflects a position of the United States that's longstanding."

Council member Indonesia, concerned about its own secessionist movements, said it was following the situation closely but was not yet prepared to recognize Kosovo's statehood.

Kosovo's 2 million population is 90 percent ethnic Albanian, mainly secular Muslims, who do not want to be part of Serbia, a predominantly Christian Orthodox nation.

Kosovo has been under U.N. and NATO administration since a NATO-led air war.

In April 2007, U.N. envoy Martti Ahtisaari recommended that Kosovo be granted internationally supervised independence — a proposal strongly supported by the province's ethnic Albanians, the U.S. and most of the European Union, but vehemently opposed by Serbia and Russia, a traditional Serb ally.

Russia blocked the Ahtisaari plan. An additional period of negotiations failed to bridge the differences between the Serbs, who have offered wide autonomy, and Kosovo's ethnic Albanian leaders, who insist on independence.

Kosovo hopes for international recognition that could come on Monday when European Union ministers meet in Brussels, Belgium. Russia, which has veto power on the council, insists Kosovo is a Security Council issue — not an EU issue — and argues that Kosovo's move sets a dangerous precedent for separatist groups globally.

On Tuesday afternoon, a more formal and open debate is planned by the Security Council at Serbia's request. Churkin said Russia insisted it should be an open meeting, and the president of Serbia will attend.

However, diplomats said it was unlikely the council would be able to reach agreement on a resolution or statement.

The Colossus

http://prospect.org/cs/articles?article=the_colossus

The Colossus
Our economic dominance may be threatened by China, India, and the European Union, but when it comes to the instruments of war, nobody else is even close. And it will stay that way no matter who, Democrat or Republican, gets elected.
Paul Waldman January 31, 2008

In 1947, President Harry Truman signed the National Security Act, which in addition to creating the National Security Council and the Central Intelligence Agency, consolidated the Army and Navy into a new department, first called the National Military Establishment and finally renamed as the Department of Defense (DoD) in 1949. The Department of War, which had been established in 1789, ceased to exist. As actual threats to American territory grew dimmer and dimmer, we eventually stopped thinking about what the word "defense" actually means -- or what a distant relationship the war-making machinery we constructed really bore to any sane notion of what "defending" our country would require.

And what an awesome machinery it is. The neoconservatives may not have succeeded in their dream of creating a new hegemonic order to rival the glory days of Rome, but we've become so used to the idea of America as the world's sole superpower that we seldom step back and take in the true scope of our capacity for killing people and blowing things up. Our military is a colossus, its tentacles of technology and steel and fire encircling the globe, daring anyone to look at it cross-eyed.

In 2007 the DoD budget exceeded $500 billion -- which doesn't include the $170 billion we spent for operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, or military-related spending in other departments (like the Energy Department, where much of the spending on nuclear weapons goes). Although worldwide figures for 2007 are not yet available, the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute's comprehensive data indicate that in 2006, global military spending stood at $1.2 trillion. In other words, we've been spending as much on our military as the rest of the world combined. Our economic dominance may be threatened by the rise of China, India, and the European Union, but when it comes to the instruments of war, nobody else is even close.

Spending that much money takes personnel, of course. There are currently about 1,375,000 men and women in uniform, plus another 671,000 civilians working for DoD, for a total of over 2 million employees. And according to the U.S. Census Bureau, another 1.4 million people work in defense-related industries in the private sector -- though we should grant that some of those people produce armaments for the overseas market. After all, America is still the world's leading arms dealer (though Russia is giving us a run for our money).

And if there is any doubt that America is still an empire, consider how far-flung our military power is. According to the Defense Department's 2007 Base Structure Report, we maintain 823 military facilities in 39 foreign countries, and another 86 facilities in seven U.S. territories. According to the document, "DoD occupies a reported 343,867 buildings throughout the world, valued at over $464 billion and comprising almost 2.4 billion square feet." The DoD also owns 32.4 million acres of land (nearly all of it in the U.S.), or over 50,000 square miles, an area about the size of Louisiana (or half of Colorado; or Delaware, Connecticut, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, and Maryland combined).

You will not be surprised to learn that the remaining Republican contenders for the presidency all demonstrate a desire to make the military even bigger. John McCain says that he wants "a larger and more capable military," no shock from a man who barely ever met a military operation he didn't support. The one who actually provides some specificity is Mitt Romney, who wants to increase military spending to 4 percent of gross domestic product. According to the government's current projections, GDP in 2009 will be $15.3 trillion, which means Romney is proposing to boost military spending by about 20 percent, to $612 billion in his first year in office (not counting spending for Iraq). By 2012, four percent of GDP would mean a military budget of over $700 billion. (Incidentally, there is no reason you would want to peg military spending to a particular level of GDP -- after all, if the economy doubled in size, it wouldn't follow that we would need twice as many tanks, guns, and soldiers.)

But even if a Democrat wins the White House, we shouldn't expect any reductions in military spending any time soon. Though the prevailing Democratic wisdom of five years ago -- that the way to appear "strong" on national security is to go along with whatever harebrained scheme Republicans cook up, then hope to change the subject -- has been utterly discredited, no particular vision on military affairs has taken its place, particularly not one that involves overall cuts. The Republican candidates may be offering little but mindless militarism, but the Democrats don't have much to say -- although Barack Obama wants to add 65,000 Army soldiers and 27,000 Marines. A consistent hawk, Hillary Clinton evinces no particular desire to reduce the size of the military, either.

As we've learned in the last decade, an extra dollar of military spending doesn't necessarily buy you an extra measure of security; indeed, depending on how you use it, it can make you far less safe. Our worldwide footprint continually creates more enemies; particularly for people or societies that put a high value on pride and honor, the mere presence of foreign troops is an affront, a daily reminder that we are strong and they are weak. As citizens of the empire, it is hard for us to imagine just what it must be like to know that another nation can plant a military base in your homeland. Those governments may be happy to have Americans invested in their security. But it no doubt feels to many ordinary people as though they're shopkeepers, and the resident Mafioso has strolled into their store, stuffed a few items in his pockets, and told them that he'd like to hold some meetings in the back room. Not only that, they'll be hiring his nephew.

Back in 2003, Howard Dean caused an uproar when he said the United States "won't always have the strongest military." After the predictable faux-outrage from his primary opponents, he attempted to explain that he wasn't talking about his potential presidency or even his lifetime. But less than a decade and a half after the end of the Cold War, our permanent military supremacy had already become part of the national identity, something no patriotic American could challenge.

When the only adversary who could seriously threaten us dissolved, we should have given up the pretension that our military is actually involved much in "defense." Outside of the fevered imagination of the Glenn Becks of the world, no sane person truly believes that if we don't play our cards right, our form of government could be overthrown and we could wind up living in an outpost of the world Islamic caliphate. Red Dawn may have been a silly movie in 1984, but think how ridiculous it would be today to imagine that America's enemies would actually take over our territory and herd us into reeducation camps.

Yet we still pretend that what the military does is "keep us safe." But with the exception of missile defense (a colossally stupid boondoggle that doesn't work, probably won't ever work, and couldn't accomplish its mission even if it worked perfectly, but that's a topic for another day), the portion of our "defense" spending that goes to actual defense is miniscule. Our soldiers, sailors, airmen, and marines aren't patrolling our borders and training to defend our cities. What they prepare for, and what they're called to do, is to project our extraordinary military power outward. Some of these missions are noble and some are tragically absurd, but no matter who gets elected in November, it won't be changing for a long time to come.

Paul Waldman is a senior fellow at Media Matters for America and the author of Being Right is Not Enough: What Progressives Must Learn From Conservative Success. The views expressed here are his own.

Fox Admits Plan For Single NAFTA Currency

http://www.prisonplanet.com/articles/october2007/091007_fox_admits.htm

Vicente Fox Admits Plan For Single NAFTA Currency
Former Mexican president wants North American Union based on EU
Paul Joseph Watson
Prison Planet
Tuesday, October 9, 2007

Mexico's former president, Vicente Fox, made an astounding admission last night on CNN's Larry King Live when he acknowledged the plan for a NAFTA single currency, a "euro-dollar" as King labeled it.

Fox also vowed to help unite the Americas beyond a trade agreement, following what he described as "a new vision, like we are trying to do with NAFTA".

The comments follow Fox's appearance on The Daily Show in which he advocated the creation of a North American Union based on the model of the European Union.

TRANSCRIPT FROM CNN.com.

KING: E-mail from Mrs. Gonzalez in Elizabeth, New Jersey. "Mr. Fox, I would like to know how you feel about the possibility of having a Latin America united with one currency?"

FOX: Long term, very long term. What we propose together, President Bush and myself, it's ALCA, which is a trade union for all of the Americas. And everything was running fluently until Hugo Chavez came. He decided to isolate himself. He decided to combat the idea and destroy the idea...

KING: It's going to be like the euro dollar, you mean?

FOX: Well, that would be long, long term. I think the processes to go, first step into is trading agreement. And then further on, a new vision, like we are trying to do with NAFTA.