Tuesday, December 31, 2013

Happy New Year Euro Zone. Now Reform.

December 31, 2013, 5:07 AM ET
ByDavid Cottle
It’s been quite some time since the euro zone could look a New Year in the eye with quite the straight and level gaze it can in dawning 2014.

Chatter about the currency’s implosion has been largely stilled in the mainstream of market discourse, largely restricted once again to dark corners from whence perma-skeptics have always prophesied eurogeddon. Bailed-out Ireland is returning to the bond markets, proving that redemption is possible even for grievous former sinners.  The long-vexed question of what to do about future failed banks even has a blueprint for resolution.

The good news about 2014 (maybe)


By Robert J. Samuelson, Published: December 30

For four and a half years, we have waited for a powerful and self-sustaining economic recovery. More than once it seemed imminent. Then, for various reasons, it vanished, and we returned to a plodding expansion with too much unemployment and too little confidence. Could 2014 be the year when the recovery actually feels like a recovery? Well, it could.

I say this with humility. True, many forecasts have turned optimistic. Economic growth will (finally) accelerate. But similar predictions were made in the past, including by me, and were wrong. The same could happen again. Still, the case for a healthier recovery now seems the most plausible since the recession’s nadir in mid-2009. The reason: Many economic “fundamentals” are improving simultaneously.

Here are four.

More than 2,000 sign up to redundancy plan at Greece's NBG-source

ATHENS Mon Dec 30, 2013 2:46pm EST
Dec 30 (Reuters) - More than 2,000 people have signed up for a voluntary redundancy scheme at Greece's biggest lender, National Bank (NBG), aimed at shedding about 15 percent of its workforce to cut costs, an NBG official told Reuters on Monday.

Hammered by Greece's six-year recession, the country's four major lenders had billions pumped into them to prop them up after a sovereign debt restructuring last year and rising bad loans and are now restructuring to trim their cost base.

Greece: Former minister sentenced to 4-year suspended imprisonment

30/12 13:09 CET
Former Transport Minister Michalis Liapis was sentenced to four year suspended imprisonment, redeemable for 50 euros a day, after being arrested for driving an uninsured vehicle with fake number plates.

Gunmen in Greece Attack German Ambassador’s Residence

December 30, 2013
The New York Times
By LIZ ALDERMAN
Assailants raked the German ambassador’s residence in Athens with gunfire early on Monday in an attack that caused no injuries, Greek police officials said.

The police found 60 spent bullet casings at the scene and detained six people in connection with the incident, which occurred around 3:30 a.m. in an affluent suburb north of Athens. The bullet casings came from two Kalashnikov assault rifles, according to the police.

No one claimed responsibility for the attack, in which four bullets hit a security gate. But anti-German sentiment has been festering among many Greeks struggling with record unemployment and reduced salaries under a harsh austerity plan required for Greece’s international bailout, which Germany had a major role in selecting the terms of.

“Nothing, but really nothing, can justify such an attack on a representative of our country,” the German foreign minister, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, said in a statement in Berlin. He said Germany took the attack seriously, and a Foreign Ministry spokesman said that the Greek authorities had reacted swiftly and assured Germany they would strengthen security in Athens.

Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany received a phone call from Prime Minister Antonis Samaras of Greece, according to a spokesman for the German government, Steffen Seibert. He added that Greece, which on Wednesday will take over the rotating presidency of the European Union, can count on Germany’s full support.

“The Greek government expresses its abhorrence and utter condemnation of today’s cowardly act of terrorism, the sole and obvious target of which was Greece’s image abroad just a few days before the start of the Hellenic presidency of the Council of the E.U.,” the Greek Foreign Ministry said in a statement.

Germany is the largest contributor to Greece’s 240 billion euro, or roughly $330 billion, bailout. Recently, Mr. Samaras has been pressing Germany to reduce and renegotiate Athens’s delinquent debts as it grapples with a wrenching five-year recession — something Germany has refused to do.

That has also fed a persistent low-grade anger over hundreds of billions of euros in reparations that Greeks say Germany owes the country from World War II, money that some say should go toward helping to forgive Greece’s debt bill. Greek newspapers regularly run articles on how much money Germany owes Greece.

Greece has made some progress in improving its finances to meet the terms of the bailout — so much so that it is forecast to have a primary surplus before debt payments in 2014 for the first time in five years. But Greece still faces a mountain of debt that economists say is all but unpayable unless some new form of debt forgiveness is extended to Athens.

Over the weekend, Jens Weidmann, the chairman of the German Bundesbank and a member of the European Central Bank’s Governing Council, ruled out another reduction in Greece’s state debt, saying in a German newspaper interview that Athens still needed to press ahead with a number of reforms as required by the terms of its bailout.

While financial markets have calmed recently, he told the newspaper Bild, “this could be some misleading safety. The crisis could be fanned again like a fire.”

His remarks echoed those of the German finance minister, Wolfgang Schäuble, who is widely reviled in Greece. During a visit to Athens this summer, the police locked down the center of the city to pedestrian and car traffic as helicopters flew overhead, leaving the streets in a ghostly state of quiet. The scenes were reminiscent of when Ms. Merkel visited Greece in 2012.

Representatives of the so-called troika of lenders — the European Central Bank, the International Monetary Fund and the European Commission — are scheduled to return to Athens in January to resume talks over a fresh 4.9 billion euro tranche of aid.

The same building as the one struck on Monday was targeted in a rocket attack in May 1999 claimed by the terrorist group November 17, which has since been dismantled.

Although no group has claimed responsibility for the attack on Monday, the incident follows an apparent rise in violent episodes by both far-right and far-left groups in Greece.


Niki Kitsantonis contributed reporting from Athens, and Alison Smale from Berlin.

Friday, December 27, 2013

China cabinet report sees 2013 economic growth at 7.6 percent: Xinhua

SHANGHAI Wed Dec 25, 2013 8:36pm EST
(Reuters) - China's economic growth is likely to come in at 7.6 percent this year, according to a cabinet report cited by the official Xinhua news agency, just above the government's target of 7.5 percent and slightly below last year's 7.7 percent.

Xu Shaoshi, head of China's top economic planning body, told lawmakers in a briefing on the report uncertainties remain in the global economic recovery, and the international market has failed to produce strong demand, Xinhua said late on Wednesday. Domestically, higher labor and environmental costs for enterprises pose challenges, he added.

Thursday, December 26, 2013

Turkey's Byzantine Scandal

Corruption charges threaten the country's Islamist leader.
Dec. 26, 2013 3:07 p.m. ET
 The Wall Street Journal
Recep Tayyip Erdogan has spent the past week blaming a burgeoning corruption scandal on foreign plotters. But Wednesday's trio of resignations from his cabinet, which were intended to insulate Turkey's Islamist Prime Minister, had the effect of bringing the scandal to his doorstep.

The Interior and Economy Ministers did their duty by denouncing the investigations and professing the prime minister's (and their own) innocence. But Erdogan Bayraktar, the Minister for the Environment and a confidant of the PM, went out with a bang. Mr. Bayraktar said Wednesday that he was pressured to resign to shield Mr. Erdogan from the scandal, which concerns alleged payoffs to facilitate real-estate development deals. He also suggested that if it was right for him to step aside for the country's sake, then Mr. Erdogan should resign as well.

Greece Struggles to Outlaw Its Golden Dawn Fascist Party

Conservative Government Mounts Risky Effort to Declare Group a Criminal Organization
By MARCUS WALKER and MARIANNA KAKAOUNAKI
Updated Dec. 4, 2013 11:37 p.m. ET
The Wall Street Journal
PIRAEUS, Greece—At a dark crossroads here in September, Greek police kept a safe distance while black-clad activists from the fascist movement Golden Dawn chased and attacked Pavlos Fyssas, a 34-year-old rapper.

The police had long been in the habit of standing by while Golden Dawn's paramilitary squads rolled into action, mirroring the hesitance of Greece's political leadership to deal with the growing movement's muscle. Only after a Golden Dawn member fatally stabbed the rapper did police officers make an arrest, according to 15 police and witness depositions.

Tuesday, December 24, 2013

A former transport minister in trouble

Greek politics
Dec 20th 2013, 16:15 by K.H. | ATHENS
The Economist
ARE old nepotistic habits finally dying in Greece? The arrest on December 17th of Michalis Liapis, an ex-transport minister and first cousin of a former conservative premier, for driving his SUV with fake number-plates and no insurance, suggests that prominent politicians can no longer count on lenient treatment by the police.

Members of parliament enjoy immunity from prosecution unless their peers vote to remove it, a privilege informally extended to scores of ex-cabinet ministers when they leave politics. Like many Greeks cutting costs because of the crisis, Mr Liapis turned in his number-plates this year to avoid paying road tax after it was sharply increased for owners of luxury vehicles. Stopped by police for running a red light in the seaside town of Loutsa near Athens, he explained he was taking the car for a spin to stop the battery from running down. "I am a pensioner and I too have been affected by the crisis,” he claimed.

Where Is the Rule of the Troika Leading Greece?

Posted: 12/23/2013 10:06 am
Constantine TzanosNuclear engineer, PhD
The Huffington Post
Since 2010, Greece is under the rule of the Troika (IMF, European Commission [EC] , European Central Bank [ECB]), which rules under the terms of the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU), a document expounding what is expected to be executed by the Greek government.

The life and the future of eleven million people hang from the policies of the Troika, which are dominated by the German dictates of a severely punitive austerity characterized by deep cuts in wages and pensions and heavy taxation of individuals and businesses.

Mission accomplished, says Snowden: Washington Post

Mon Dec 23, 2013 11:35pm EST

(Reuters) - Former National Security Agency (NSA) contractor Edward Snowden, who revealed extensive details of global electronic surveillance by the U.S. spy agency, said in an interview published on Tuesday that he has accomplished what he set out to do.

"For me, in terms of personal satisfaction, the mission's already accomplished," he told the Washington Post. The newspaper said it spoke to Snowden over two days of nearly unbroken conversation in Moscow, "fueled by burgers, pasta, ice cream and Russian pastry."

With Its Economy Hobbled, Greece's Well-Educated Drain Away

by JOANNA KAKISSIS
December 23, 2013 6:17 PM

Thanos Ntoumanis and his wife, Laura, are crashing at his parents' apartment in Greece's northern city of Thessaloniki.

The couple have packed their home and are moving to Germany. Thanos, a 38-year-old psychiatrist, is joining some 4,000 Greek doctors who have left the austerity-hit country for jobs abroad in the past three years. It's the largest brain drain in three decades.

"I won't say that I'm never coming back," he says. "I do need some distance, though. I don't want to get to that tipping point. I don't want to get to that point where I hate it here."

"You'll come back," says his mother, Pepi Mavrogianni, trying to break the gloom. She's a retired pediatrician in a "Hippocratic Oath" T-shirt. She brings out a tray of warm cheese pies.

Monday, December 23, 2013

Glimmers of hope for Greek future

23 December 2013 Last updated at 00:56 GMT
By Mark Lowen
BBC News, Athens

With predictions of growth in 2014 and unemployment down slightly, there is a feeling of optimism from the government in Athens - but Greeks say they know there are still difficult days ahead.

They come just before sunset - those magical few minutes in which Athens bathes in a deep purple glow.

It is a light I have never seen anywhere else. I often wait for it, looking out at the late afternoon sun.

It sets behind the Acropolis, where the ancient Gods were worshipped, glinting onto the Aegean nearby. Rays dance across the mountains.

Friday, December 20, 2013

China grants renewed press cards to several Western journalists facing expulsion

By William Wan, Published: December 19
The Washington Post 
BEIJING — Several Western journalists facing expulsion from China were given renewed press cards Thursday by the Chinese government, allowing them to apply for visas to remain in the country.

The move appears to end a weeks-long standoff between the government and journalists that included a personal appeal by Vice President Biden to China’s president this month.

Journalists from the New York Times, Bloomberg News and other organizations were facing the loss of their Chinese visas around the end of December, at which point they and their families would be forced to leave the country.

Thursday, December 19, 2013

Media: Play Fair With Economic Reporting on Greece

Posted: 12/16/2013 8:43 am
The Greek government is forecasting 0.6% economic growth in 2014, after six straight years of economic contraction.
huffingtonpost
Ordinarily, 0.6% economic growth would not be great news. But the return of the Greek economy to growth is modestly good news after a torrent of terrible news. Under the European austerity plan imposed on Greece as a condition of remaining in the Euro, the Greek economy has shrunk by a third since 2007, which is similar to the Great Depression contraction of the U.S. economy between the stock market crash of 1929 and the election of FDR.

Debt-laden Greece prepares "Spartan" EU presidency to burnish image

BY HARRY PAPACHRISTOU
ATHENS Tue Dec 17, 2013 8:00am EST
Dec 17 (Reuters) - Barely 18 months after it almost crashed out of the euro zone, Greece takes over the rotating presidency of the European Union with the hope of using the podium to show it is bouncing back.

Greece, which takes on the job for six months from Jan. 1, has a reputation for being the Europe's biggest problem child and will be negotiating for debt relief from other European states while it holds the presidency.

The position requires the holder to organise hundreds of ministerial gatherings and policy negotiations, giving Athens an opportunity to drive the agenda, if only for a few months.

Wednesday, December 18, 2013

China confirms near miss with U.S. ship in South China Sea

BY SUI-LEE WEE
BEIJING Wed Dec 18, 2013 4:23am EST
(Reuters) - China on Wednesday confirmed an incident between a Chinese naval vessel and a U.S. warship in the South China Sea, after Washington said a U.S. guided missile cruiser had avoided a collision with a Chinese warship maneuvering nearby.

Experts have said the near-miss between the USS Cowpens and a Chinese warship operating near China's only aircraft carrier, the Liaoning, was the most significant U.S.-China maritime incident in the disputed South China Sea since 2009.

Antarctica may have a new type of ice: diamonds

BY ENVIRONMENT CORRESPONDENT ALISTER DOYLE
(Reuters) - A kind of rock that often contains diamonds has been found in Antarctica for the first time, hinting at mineral riches in the vast, icy continent -- where mining is banned.

No diamonds were found, but researchers said they were confident the gems were there.

"It would be very surprising if there weren't diamonds in these kimberlites," Greg Yaxley of the Australian National University in Canberra, who led the research, said in a telephone interview.

Leading Drug Company to Quit Paying Doctors for Promotional Talks

GlaxoSmithKline, which makes Advair for asthma, Lovaza for high triglyceride levels and the diabetes drug Avandia, is under pressure facing all drug companies for greater transparency in payments to doctors, a provision of Obamacare
Scientific American
By Charles Ornstein and ProPublica
In a major departure from industry practice, GlaxoSmithKline, the sixth-largest global drug maker, announced Tuesday that it will no longer hire doctors to promote its drugs.

The company also will stop tying compensation for sales representatives to the number of prescriptions written for drugs they market. The changes will be made worldwide over the next two years.

Low Inflation Tests World's Central Banks

Subdued Prices Persist Despite Years of Easy Money; Deflation Still a Threat
By SUDEEP REDDY in Washington, BRIAN BLACKSTONE in Frankfurt and JASON DOUGLAS in London
The Wall Street Journal
Updated Dec. 17, 2013 7:28 p.m. ET
Inflation is slowing across the developed world despite ultralow interest rates and unprecedented money-printing campaigns, posing a dilemma for the Federal Reserve and other major central banks as they plot their next policy moves.

Amid China’s Bad Air, a Reminder That Smoking Still Kills

December 17, 2013, 2:18 am 6 Comments
The New York Times
By AUSTIN RAMZY
As the recognition of the danger of outdoor air pollution in China grows, health authorities are trying to use that knowledge to raise awareness of an even deadlier health threat: smoking. China has about 350 million smokers, and despite efforts to reduce consumption, tobacco is still widely consumed, and about half of adult males are regular smokers, according to surveys.

Tuesday, December 17, 2013

Japan to bolster military, boost Asia ties to counter China

BY LINDA SIEG AND KIYOSHI TAKENAKA
TOKYO Tue Dec 17, 2013 4:55am EST
(Reuters) - Japan will boost its military spending in coming years, buying early-warning planes, beach-assault vehicles and troop-carrying aircraft, while seeking closer ties with Asian partners to counter a more militarily assertive China.

The planned 2.6 percent increase over five years, announced on Tuesday, reverses a decade of decline and marks the clearest sign since Prime Minister Shinzo Abe took office a year ago that he wants a bigger military role for Japan as tension flares with China over islands they both claim.

Monday, December 16, 2013

Climate change and disputes.

The following articles by no means are exhaustive for the topic at hand. They are part of a debate, for and against human intervention in climate dynamics. The harsh weather of the recent days sparked it and I offer a mere sample of it.
An article against man induced climate change
'GLOBAL WARMING' ICED BY 'COLDEST DAYS EVER'

An article in favor of man induced climate change
A speech in favor of man induced climate change

Riot in China's Xinjiang kills 16, 'terror gang' blamed

BEIJING Mon Dec 16, 2013 3:46am EST
(Reuters) - Chinese police shot and killed 14 people during a riot near the old Silk Road city of Kashgar in which two policemen were also killed, the local government said on Monday, the latest unrest in a region that has a substantial Muslim population.

China has previously called some of the violence in the far western region of Xinjiang the work of Islamist militants plotting holy war.

Describing the incident which happened late on Sunday, Hua Chunying, a spokeswoman for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, stopped short of directly blaming Islamist militants but said a "violent terror gang" attacked police with explosives.

Draghi Ally Asmussen to Leave ECB for German Government

By Paul Gordon and Rainer Buergin  Dec 16, 2013 10:49 AM GMT+0200
Joerg Asmussen is to leave the European Central Bank’s Executive Board for a government position, depriving President Mario Draghi of a key German ally.

Asmussen, 47, will become deputy labor minister in German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s government and will shortly resign from his post at the ECB, he said in a statement distributed by the Frankfurt-based institution yesterday. Asmussen has been on the six-person Executive Board, which implements monetary policy for the euro area, since January 2012. His term was scheduled to run until 2019.

Friday, December 13, 2013

How Real Is Greece's Oil And Gas Future?

Forbes
If you’ve been watching Greece’s recent energy push lately, it’s been difficult not to get too excited about the country’s potential. From political commentators to Prime Minister Antonis Samaras himself, the message has been enthusiastic and clear – Greece is home to billions of barrels of oil, trillions of cubic meters of gas and most importantly for a country saddled with the longest recession in modern history, billions in potential revenue.

Thursday, December 12, 2013

Greek exit from eurozone remains a possibility

The Guardian
By Niels Pratley
Thinktank points out the Greece's public debt – currently at 170% of GDP – is still unsustainably high
It's been a good year for the eurozone crisis in the sense that flare-ups have been few and minor. But here comes thinktank Capital Economics with the gloomy diagnosis that Greece's public debt (currently at 170% of GDP) is still unsustainably high and "the country's crisis is not yet over". That is despite the clear improvement in the public finances since the second bailout in 2012.

China Auto Sales Gain 16% as Japan Automakers Extend Rebound

By Bloomberg News - Dec 10, 2013
China’s passenger-vehicle sales rose 16 percent in November as Japanese automakers extended their recovery in the world’s largest auto market.

Wholesale deliveries of cars, multipurpose and sport utility vehicles climbed to 1.7 million units last month, the state-backed China Association of Automobile Manufacturers said today. That compares with the median 1.69 million units estimate of four analysts surveyed by Bloomberg News.

Trade can break down China’s Great Firewall

The Washington Post
By Marcus W. Brauchli and Lee C. Bollinger, Published: December 11

Beijing has hinted ominously that it might rescind the right to live in China from as many as two dozen foreign journalists based there for U.S. news organizations.

Such a mass eviction would be a dramatic escalation from its previous practices of denying visas to individual reporters and blocking access to foreign news organizations’ Web sites or suspending the distribution of their publications in China.

Wednesday, December 11, 2013

EU argues over joint rescue plan for eurozone banks

BBC
11 December 2013 Last updated at 11:31 GMT
The EU is edging towards a common mechanism for rescuing problem banks, in a drive to avoid any repetition of taxpayer-funded bailouts.
EU finance ministers finished marathon talks early on Wednesday - but they will try again next week to reach a deal on the eve of an EU summit.
Bank failures triggered the eurozone financial crises that struck the Republic of Ireland, Spain and Cyprus.
The new rescue blueprint would involve transferring powers to a new EU agency.
There are arguments over the future scope of that agency's powers - and the plan still has to be agreed with the European Parliament.

China bitcoin arbitrage ends as traders work around capital controls

BY GABRIEL WILDAU
SHANGHAI Wed Dec 11, 2013 7:17am EST
(Reuters) - The price gap between bitcoins trading in Chinese yuan and those sold for other currencies has evaporated in recent days, highlighting the porous nature of China's capital controls.

Chinese bitcoin chat rooms buzzed last month as investors noticed that the digital currency as sold on China's biggest exchange was more expensive, in dollar terms, than bitcoins traded abroad using dollars, creating a tempting arbitrage play.

Traders could earn profits by buying bitcoins using dollars on a foreign exchange such as Mt. Gox, reselling them for yuan at the higher price on BTC China, the main local exchange, and finally converting the yuan back to dollars.

Tuesday, December 10, 2013

EU Week Ahead Dec. 9-13: Pre-Christmas Scramble

December 9, 2013, 4:43 AM
By Tom Fairless
The Wall Street Journal
The pre-Christmas summit bonanza moves into full swing this week, as European Union governments scramble to finalize legislation that they pledged to have in place by year-end. In particular, EU finance ministers hope to reach a deal on a system to centralize control of failing banks, known as the single resolution mechanism: Germany has so far held out against the European Commission’s plan for a central decision-making authority and fund, which it worries could violate EU treaties. Euro-zone finance ministers will also gather to discuss the progress of the bloc’s bailed-out members, with Greece, as ever, high on the agenda.

China Adopts Board-Game Strategy to Blunt U.S. Pivot to Asia

By Bloomberg News  Dec 10, 2013 8:42 AM GMT+0200
The foreign policy strategy emerging from China’s new leadership may include a series of incremental steps calibrated to blunt U.S. influence across Asia and sow doubt about America’s commitment to its allies in the region.

Potential next steps following last month’s imposition of an air defense zone over the East China Sea in the face of U.S. condemnation include more vigorously challenging aircraft that enter the area, imposing a similar zone over disputed territory in the South China Sea and asserting naval control over islands also claimed by other nations.

Monday, December 9, 2013

Greece: Public sector no longer too large

By Associated Press, Published: December 6

ATHENS, Greece — Greece no longer has too many public servants and is close to reaching staff reduction targets demanded by bailout lenders two years before the deadline, the government said Friday.

Administrative Reform Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis also insisted that his bailed out eurozone member country is on the brink of recovery.

The number of workers on the state payroll has been slashed from 913,000 at the end of 2009 to 681,392 on Nov. 30, with annual spending on wage costs reduced by just over one-third, the government said.

Slower China inflation reduces worries of tighter policy

BY KEVIN YAO
BEIJING Mon Dec 9, 2013 2:58am EST
(Reuters) - China's annual consumer inflation unexpectedly slowed in November, easing market fears of any imminent policy tightening as authorities meet this week to outline their policy and reform priorities for 2014.

Rising money market rates and bond yields indicate the People's Bank of China (PBOC) is tightening liquidity conditions, to reduce debt levels and contain credit growth, but there is little sign of a sharp turnaround in monetary policy.

Annual consumer inflation unexpectedly slowed to 3 percent in November from an eight-month high of 3.2 percent, the National Bureau of Statistics said on Monday. Analysts had expected the inflation rate to hold steady at October's level.

Sunday, December 8, 2013

Greece's Reforms Have Only Cracked the Surface

Powerful vested interests thrive on the levies, fees, subsidies and barriers to entry that Greece needs to eliminate.
The Wall Street Journal
By ARISTIDES N. HATZIS
Dec. 5, 2013 3:15 p.m. ET
Last week Ángel Gurría, the secretary-general of the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development, visited Athens to present the OECD's latest economic survey of Greece. Since 2010, the report said, Greece "has made impressive headway in cutting its fiscal and external imbalances and implementing structural reforms to raise labor market flexibility and improve labor competitiveness."

But the OECD also emphasized that "more needs to be done." The organization's assessment of competition in four key sectors in Greece, also released last week, identified 555 problematic regulations and 329 provisions.

Greek Parliament Approves 2014 Budget

Move Comes As the County and Bailout Creditors Are at Odds Over Budget Cuts for Next Year
The Wall Street Journal
Greece's parliament early Sunday morning approved the government's 2014 budget, ahead of an important meeting of eurozone finance ministers next week and despite not having agreed with bailout creditors over further cutbacks needed for next year.

By Nektaria Stamouli

ATHENSGreece’s parliament early Sunday morning approved the government’s 2014 budget, ahead of an important meeting of eurozone finance ministers next week and despite not having agreed with its bailout creditors over further cutbacks needed for next year.

Corruption in the Middle East

More than red tape
Dec 8th 2013, 18:52 by S.B. | MANAMA
The Economist
THE latest Corruption Perceptions Index by Transparency International, a lobby, does not make happy reading for those in the Middle East. Five Arab countries come among the bottom ten countries for corruption: Somalia, Sudan, Libya, Iraq and Syria. The highest ranking of the 177 states included in the study is the UAE at 26. Qatar comes two places further down. Israel fares slightly worse in 36th position. The other Gulf countries do best among the remaining Arab states: Bahrain, Oman, Saudi Arabia follow the UAE and Qatar. Egypt. which desperately needs to kick start its economy after almost three years of turmoil, comes in at a lousy 114 (joint with Indonesia).

Friday, December 6, 2013

Nelson Mandela


The long walk is over

Dec 5th 2013, 22:10 by The Economist

Strikes in Greece

The Economist
University staff have been on strike for 13 weeks without an end in sight
Dec 7th 2013 | ATHENS |
WHAT a difference a crisis can make. The same Greek students who used to stage months-long sit-ins to press for a bigger say in running university affairs are now desperate to get back to studying. A strike by administrative staff has shut Athens University and the Athens polytechnic, the country’s best higher-education institutions, for 13 weeks. New undergraduates have been unable to register for courses, let alone attend classes. Striking administrators have locked lecture halls, libraries and laboratories and kept the keys. “We’ve effectively lost the first semester of this academic year…so dozens of my students won’t be able to take their degrees on time,” says a frustrated law professor.

Kazarian Says Greece Needs Clean Numbers for Investors

By Marcus Bensasson - Dec 6, 2013 2:01 AM GMT+0200
Bloomberg 
Paul Kazarian, the U.S. investor buying up Greek government bonds, calls the European Union’s accounting “completely irrational” and wants to help finance an alternative to allow Greece to return to the debt markets.
The founder of Japonica Partners & Co. said in a Dec. 3 interview in Athens that applying International Public Sector Accounting Standards would give bond markets the same kind of audited financial statements that equity investors are accustomed to. Kazarian, who started a tender offer for the Greek securities in June, said the EU method of measuring member states’ public finances overstates the level of indebtedness.

“If you really want to be back in the capital markets and soon, you have to deliver, you have to show some early wins,” Kazarian, 58, said. “Show your debt number, give access to it and verify it, and then have the dialogue: ‘So which number is right?’ Is it a legal definition that has absolutely no economic rationality to it, or is the world-class standard the right debt number?”

Greece Struggles to Outlaw Its Golden Dawn Fascist Party

Conservative Government Mounts Risky Effort to Declare Group a Criminal Organization
The Wall Street Journal
By MARCUS WALKER and MARIANNA KAKAOUNAKI
Updated Dec. 4, 2013 11:37 p.m. ET
PIRAEUS, Greece—At a dark crossroads here in September, Greek police kept a safe distance while black-clad activists from the fascist movement Golden Dawn chased and attacked Pavlos Fyssas, a 34-year-old rapper.

Thursday, December 5, 2013

China Bans Financial Companies From Bitcoin Transactions

By Bloomberg News - Dec 5, 2013 12:25 PM GMT+0200
China’s central bank barred financial institutions from handling Bitcoin transactions, moving to regulate the virtual currency after an 89-fold jump in its value sparked a surge of investor interest in the country.
Bitcoin plunged more than 20 percent to below $1,000 on the BitStamp Internet exchange after the People’s Bank of China said it isn’t a currency with “real meaning” and doesn’t have the same legal status. The public is free to participate in Internet transactions provided they take on the risk themselves, it said.
The ban reflects concern about the risk the digital currency may pose to China’s capital controls and financial stability after a surge in trading this year made the country the world’s biggest trader of Bitcoin, according to exchange operator BTC China. Bitcoin’s price jumped more than ninefold in the past two months alone, prompting former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan to call it a “bubble.”

Global shares stabilize after sell-off, euro firm before ECB

BY MARC JONES
LONDON Thu Dec 5, 2013 7:43am EST

(Reuters) - European shares steadied on Thursday after three days of selling, as focus turned to whether the European Central Bank will offer any new economic stimulus after the Bank of England left its interest rates at a record low.

Markets remained under pressure amid speculation about the future of U.S. monetary stimulus. That kept bond yields elevated and left shares struggling to recover from this week's declines.

European shares .FTEU3 were virtually flat before the 1245 GMT ECB rate decision and 1330 GMT news conference, as traders waited to hear what the head of the bank, Mario Draghi, had to say..EU

Wednesday, December 4, 2013

This one number explains how China is taking over the world

Posted by Neil Irwin on December 3, 2013 at 12:40 pm
The Washington Post
An announcement Tuesday by the obscure-sounding Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication, better known as SWIFT, may not get much ink. China's currency, it reported, was used in 8.66 percent of global trade finance transactions in October, the group said. It's now the No. 2 most widely used currency for trade finance, supplanting the euro.
But that is a lot more important than it might sound. It gives an important window into how the global economy is changing--and why America's long reign of economic dominance is at risk.

Tuesday, December 3, 2013

Greek deputy PM says lenders 'footdragging' on bailout review

ATHENS Mon Dec 2, 2013 8:01pm IST

(Reuters) - Greece's deputy prime minister accused its lenders of Monday of obstructing bailout talks after inspectors from the EU and IMF postponed a visit over a lack of progress on reforms.

The troika of the European Commission, the European Central Bank and the International Monetary Fund have been pushing Greece to accept measures that do nothing to fix the country's finances, said Evangelos Venizelos, also head of the left-wing PASOK party, a junior partner in the coalition government.

"Nothing justifies a new round of friction, foot-dragging and tension with the troika. Nothing," Venizelos said in a speech at a conference.

GREECE - Factors to Watch on December 3

Tue Dec 3, 2013 1:05pm IST
ATHENS, Dec 3 (Reuters) - Here are news stories, press
reports and events, which may affect Greek financial markets on
Tuesday:
   
    GREEK DEPUTY PM SAYS LENDERS "FOOTDRAGGING" ON BAILOUT
REVIEW
    Greece's deputy prime minister accused its lenders of Monday
of obstructing bailout talks after inspectors from the EU and
IMF postponed a visit over a lack of progress on reforms.
   

Monday, December 2, 2013

Why China is fixated on the Moon

David Shukman
Science editor
BBC
The Moon could be a "beautiful" source of minerals and energy, a top Chinese scientist has told the BBC.

Exotic materials including helium-3 and the potential for solar power could prove invaluable for humankind, he says.

The comments come from Prof Ouyang Ziyuan of the department of lunar and deep space exploration.

His first interview with the foreign media provides insights into China's usually secretive space programme.

Prof Ouyang was speaking ahead of the first Chinese attempt to land an unmanned spacecraft on the lunar surface.

Sunday, December 1, 2013

Golden Dawn Rally: Greece's Ultra-Right Party Holds Protest Outside Parliament

Reuters  |  Posted: 11/30/2013 2:20 pm EST
ATHENS, Nov 30 (Reuters) - About 1,000 supporters of Greece's Golden Dawn party gathered outside parliament on Saturday to protest against the pre-trial detention of their leader Nikolaos Mihaloliakos on charges of forming a criminal organisation.

Clad in black clothes, carrying torches and Greek flags, the ultra-right party's supporters shouted slogans such as "hands off Golden Dawn, don't jail nationalists" to the sound of Greek folk and marching songs.

The protest took place under the watch of riot police, mobilised to shield it from counter-rallies by rival leftist groups nearby. Events unfolded peacefully after police banned all marches in the area to prevent clashes.

Metro-North Passenger Train Derails in New York, Killing Four

Officials Say 63 Injured in Commuter Train Cars off Tracks Near Spuyten Duyvil Station on Hudson Line
The Wall Street Journal
By TED MANN, ALISON FOX And MARA GAY
Updated Dec. 1, 2013 11:28 a.m. ET
A Metro-North train derailed in New York City Sunday morning, killing four people on board and scattering rail cars near the water's edge, authorities said.

The southbound diesel train on the Hudson line derailed about 100 yards from the Spuyten Duyvil station in the Bronx at about 7:30 a.m., a railroad spokeswoman said. Officials said there were 63 others injured, with 11 in critical condition.

The people’s panopticon

The Economist
It is getting ever easier to record anything, or everything, that you see. This opens fascinating possibilities—and alarming ones
Nov 16th 2013 | SAN FRANCISCO
ABOUT halfway through Dave Eggers’s bestselling dystopian satire on Silicon Valley, “The Circle”, the reader meets Stewart, a bald, silent, stooped 60-year-old who has “been filming, recording, every moment of his life now for five years”. Stewart is the first of the novel’s characters to make all his actions visible to anyone with a computer who cares to look—the first “transparent man”.