Nicolas Sarkozy – Page 3 – Infinite Unknown

French President Nicolas Sarkozy: EU Must Back Greece or Jeopardize Euro

March 7, 2010 by Infinite

March 7 (Bloomberg) — French President Nicolas Sarkozy said the European Union must support Greece or risk destroying the euro as Prime Minister George Papandreou heads for Paris to lobby support for the debt-laden country.

“If we created the euro, we cannot let a country fall that is in the eurozone,” said Sarkozy yesterday before a meeting with Papandreou in Paris today. “Otherwise there was no point in creating the euro. We must support Greece because they are making an effort.”

EU leaders have so far refused to give financial aid to Greece and have ordered the government to cut its budget deficit, the EU’s highest, on its own. While Papandreou says steps taken this past week to slash the shortfall warrant more help from the EU, German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle said yesterday that his country is “not going to write a blank check.”

Papandreou is visiting Berlin, Paris and Washington after his government passed a 4.8 billion euro ($6.5 billion) austerity package on March 5. A poll published in To Vima newspaper today showed 51.9 percent of voters support him even after the cuts, compared with 47.5 percent who don’t.

New World Order Gordon Brown wants to police the entire world – how controlling can a freak get?

December 25, 2009 by Infinite

Related information:

Barack Obama, Silvio Berlusconi and Dmitri Medvedev celebrate after agreeing a set of measures designed to haul the world out of recession. Gordon Brown, who hosted the summit, said the deal heralded a “new world order”.
Source: The First Post

British Prime Minister Gordon Brown himself announced that the G20 heralded the creation of a “new world order” which would involve increased global regulation of economic markets.

Still think that the ‘New World Order’ is a conspiracy theory?

Now here is an interesting article from the Telegraph.

Quasimodo in Number 10, hunched, scowling over his desk, has devised yet another plan to police, to increase surveillance, to indulge his obsession with extending his short-lived control over as many people as possible. Gordon Brown, who now seems to have lost his last tenuous grip on reality, wants the European Union to police the carbon emissions of the whole world. That is the leitmotif of New Labour – and, by extension, all Westminster – government: control, bans, observation, intrusion, diktat.

Balked of a legal agreement on imaginary manmade global warming at Copenhagen, Quasimodo and Nicolas Sarkozy are working on plans to create a “European monitoring organisation” to oversee different countries’ actions on carbon emissions. Barack Obama – the leading control freak in the liberal pantheon – has suggested spy satellites could be used.

Quasimodo told reporters: “We’re in favour of transparency; we’re in favour of looking at what’s happening not just in our country and our own continent, but around the world.” That isn’t transparency: that is snooping. “We’re in favour of transparency” – from a New Labour Prime Minister! Goebbels, who always favoured the Big Lie, would have loved it.

Were Quasimodo and his colleagues in favour of transparency about weapons of mass destruction? Even now, are they in favour of transparency at the Iraq inquiry, where Tony Blair will give evidence in secret? Were they in favour of transparency when they voted to keep MPs’ expenses under wraps, until the courts overruled them?

The one fear the enforcers entertain is that their spy-in-the-sky snooping on carbon emissions might antagonise China, which resists surveillance (all those covert coal mines and other eco-naughties). When Red China begins to seem like an apostle of laissez-faire, relaxed freedom, we know that the lunatics have taken over the asylum.

Sarkozy spent £160m on events and refurbishment during French EU presidency, incl. £250,000 on a personal shower he did not use

October 28, 2009 by Infinite

WTF!

Audit slams ‘opaque’ accounting as French EU presidency found to have spent £160m on events and refurbishment

Nicolas Sarkozy at a European Council summit last year. His spending has been blamed on poor management. Photograph: Eric Feferberg/AFP/Getty Images

French financial watchdogs slammed Nicolas Sarkozy for spending £160m during his country’s six-month stint in charge of the EU – including £250,000 on a personal presidential shower that he never used.

The vast expense is set out in a report blaming poor management and a lack of transparency by the president’s staff.

Costs soared because so many of the EU-related events were organised at the last minute, said the report.

On one occasion Sarkozy triggered the cancellation of an entire EU event he was due to host in Evian, because he wanted to sleep in his own bed at the Élysée palace. By then, hundreds of journalists, EU officials and national delegations had either already arrived in Evian or were on their way.

A flood of complaints prompted compensation payments – adding more to the eventual presidential bill.

The total for Sarkozy’s time at the helm of the EU is set out in figures published by the French national audit office.

Every government likes to showcase its country when holding the EU presidency, which at present rotates from country to country every six months. National funds are topped up with EU budget support to organise summits, informal ministerial meetings and EU-related promotional events, conferences and policy programmes. Funding is shared between national and regional authorities and the EU budget.

For one three-day event alone, Sarkozy sanctioned an elaborate upgrade of the Grand Palace in Paris for an EU-Mediterranean summit – one of his pet initiatives to mark his turn at the EU helm.

The event was one of his final EU presidency flourishes last July, and involved hundreds of workmen and millions of pounds.

“The Grand Palace had to be completely refitted for the occasion. Five hundred technicians were mobilised every day, including 300 at night,” said the report. Spending included nearly £1m for one dinner for more than 40 government leaders and heads of state who attended the event.

Nearly £300,000 was spent building a conference podium, nearly £200,000 upgrading the gardens and grounds, and a total bill for the Sarkozy shower of almost £250,000.

The audit report said the cost soared because of the complications of installing a state-of-the-art shower to the president’s specifications in a listed building.

The president never used it – instead going back to the Élysée palace during the three-day summit to freshen up. The shower has since been dismantled.

Other spending on the summit included £90,000 for a carpet.

Paul Craig Roberts: Another War in the Works; America Is Led and Informed by Liars

October 15, 2009September 29, 2009 by Infinite

Related information: Ron Paul on the Iranian Nuclear Program

Paul Craig Roberts was Assistant Secretary of the Treasury during President Reagan’s first term. He was Associate Editor of the Wall Street Journal. He has held numerous academic appointments, including the William E. Simon Chair, Center for Strategic and International Studies, Georgetown University, and Senior Research Fellow, Hoover Institution, Stanford University.

paul-craig-roberts
Paul Craig Roberts

Does anyone remember all the lies that they were told by President Bush and the “mainstream media” about the grave threat to America from weapons of mass destruction in Iraq? These lies were repeated endlessly in the print and TV media despite the reports from the weapons inspectors, who had been sent to Iraq, that no such weapons existed.

The weapons inspectors did an honest job in Iraq and told the truth, but the mainstream media did not emphasize their findings. Instead, the media served as a Ministry of Propaganda, beating the war drums for the US government.

Now the whole process is repeating itself. This time the target is Iran.

As there is no real case against Iran, Obama took a script from Bush’s playbook and fabricated one.

First the facts: As a signatory to the non-proliferation treaty, Iran’s nuclear facilities are open to inspection by the International Atomic Energy Agency, which carefully monitors Iran’s nuclear energy program to make certain that no material is diverted to nuclear weapons.

The IAEA has monitored Iran’s nuclear energy program and has announced repeatedly that it has found no diversion of nuclear material to a weapons program. All 16 US intelligence agencies have affirmed and reaffirmed that Iran abandoned interest in nuclear weapons years ago.

In keeping with the safeguard agreement that the IAEA be informed before an enrichment facility comes online, Iran informed the IAEA on September 21 that it had a new nuclear facility under construction. By informing the IAEA, Iran fulfilled its obligations under the safeguards agreement. The IAEA will inspect the facility and monitor the nuclear material produced to make sure it is not diverted to a weapons program.

Despite these unequivocal facts, Obama announced on September 25 that Iran has been caught with a “secret nuclear facility” with which to produce a bomb that would threaten the world.

The Obama regime’s claim that Iran is not in compliance with the safeguards agreement is disinformation. Between the end of 2004 and early 2007, Iran voluntarily complied with an additional protocol (Code 3.1) that was never ratified and never became a legal part of the safeguards agreement. The additional protocol would have required Iran to notify the IAEA prior to beginning construction of a new facility, whereas the safeguards agreement in force requires notification prior to completion of a new facility. Iran ceased its voluntary compliance with the unratified additional protocol in March 2007, most likely because of the American and Israeli misrepresentations of Iran’s existing facilities and military threats against them.

By accusing Iran of having a secret “nuclear weapons program” and demanding that Iran “come clean” about the nonexistent program, adding that he does not rule out a military attack on Iran, Obama mimics the discredited Bush regime’s use of nonexistent Iraqi “weapons of mass destruction” to set up Iraq for invasion.

The US media, even the “liberal” National Public Radio, quickly fell in with the Obama lie machine. Steven Thomma of the McClatchy Newspapers declared the non-operational facility under construction, which Iran reported to the IAEA, to be “a secret nuclear facility.”

Toxic seaweed spreading on France’s northern coast

August 14, 2009 by Infinite

The French environmental group ‘Eau et Rivieres’ says that almost 70,000 cubic meters of seaweed has to be cleared off from 70 beaches every summer in Brittany.

The Lannion hospital in Brittany has said that the hydrogen sulphide is as dangerous as cyanide. The hospital has already treated many cases of poisoning caused by the seaweed among local residents. This included one council worker who was paid to clear beaches of algae. The woman was found in a coma. (Full article: Here)

toxic-seaweed
Algae on French coast “giving off deadly gas”.

SAINT-BRIEUC, France — Mounds of putrified green algae are building up on France’s northern coast, releasing poisonous fumes blamed for the recent death of a horse and the collapse of the rider.

Part of the coastline has been declared off-limits as local authorities acknowledge they are unable to get rid of the decomposing seaweed that has washed up on shores in more than 80 communities across Brittany.

Green groups accuse President Nicolas Sarkozy’s government of turning a blind eye to an “environmental cancer” caused by the algae and blame intensive farming for producing nitrates that feed the seaweed’s toxicity.

Veterinarian Vincent Petit lost consciousness and his horse collapsed when he slipped on a patch of rotting algae near the beach of Saint-Michel-en-Greve on July 28.

The horse died almost instantly and Petit was pulled to safety by a crew of workers who happened to be nearby.

The veterinarian has since threatened to sue local authorities for reckless endangerment, raising alarm in a string of coastal communities in Brittany’s Cote d’Armor region.

“The death of the horse may be the opportunity to get things moving so that finally, something is done,” said Rene Ropartz, mayor of Saint-Michel-en-Greve.

US dollar’s Dominance Under Fire at G8 Summit

July 10, 2009July 10, 2009 by Infinite

World leaders are looking for a “more diversified” currency system than the US dollar

L’AQUILA, Italy (AFP) — Leaders from some of the biggest economic powers put the dollar’s continuing dominance of post-war global finance into question at the G8 summit as calls grow for alternatives.

At the gathering in Italy, which wraps up on Friday, French President Nicolas Sarkozy joined China and a band of mostly emerging powers in calling for an end to the dollar’s reign as the international currency of reference.

“We cannot stick with just one single currency,” the French leader said at the summit in L’Aquila, central Italy.

China also used the G8 summit, which was opened up to leaders from major emerging economies, to stage a fresh attack on the dollar after repeated recent calls for the global currency system to be diversified.

Speaking on the sidelines of talks between the G8 powers and major emerging economies here, a Chinese official said on Thursday that Beijing adviser Dai Bingguo had urged world leaders “to improve the international monetary system.”

The official said China wants “to enhance the reserve currency and regulating regime, maintain a relative stability of the exchange rates of the main international reserve currencies and promote a more diversified and reasonable international currency system.”

Max Keiser on bankers’ bonuses: These guys are financial terrorists, they should be decapitated (03/27/09)

March 28, 2009 by Infinite

Several sources say Max Keiser’s BBC show ‘The Oracle’ has been suspended.

Max Keiser on France 24’s ‘Face Off’ talking about bankers’ bonuses.

Source: YouTube

Million French workers march against Sarkozy

March 19, 2009 by Infinite

Continental employees burn tyres during a demonstration in Compiègne, north of Paris Photograph: Michel Spingler/AP

More than a million angry French workers took to the streets Thursday in a nationwide strike to force President Nicolas Sarkozy to boost wages and protect jobs as the economic crisis deepens.

“Sarkozy has to take from the billionaires and give a bit back to the poor,” said teacher Jean-Baptiste Voltuain, echoing mounting calls for the right-wing government to boost social spending by hiking taxes on the rich.

Voltuain was one of the marchers at a rally in Paris which was fronted by the leaders of France’s eight main unions as it snaked its way through the east of the city in warm spring sunshine.

The CGT union said three million people took part in protests across the country, but police put the number at 1.2 million.

Related articles:
– France braced for huge street protests over economic crisis (Guardian)
– Sarkozy warned of ‘class war’ (Financial Times)

A million civil servants went on strike, officials said, while protestors from both public and private sectors marched in the capital and in Marseille, Lyon, Strasbourg and around 200 other towns.

Riot police used tear gas to disperse about 200 youths who threw stones and other objects and lit fires in the street as the Paris march came to an end at Place de la Nation.

In Toulouse, police used batons and flashballs to disperse around 200 protestors who threw bottles and set fire to rubbish bins in the southwestern city. One officer was slightly injured.

Protestors smashed windows at the MEDEF employers’ federation in Rouen in the north.

But mostly the one-day strike, which polls say had the support of nearly 80 percent of the French, was peaceful.

French government accused of ‘Big Brother’ tactics over internet piracy

March 12, 2009 by Infinite

New law would punish illegal downloading by cutting off web access

The French government has been accused of “Big Brother tactics” over a proposed anti-piracy law that aims to punish people who repeatedly illegally download music and films by cutting off their internet access for up to a year.

A bill is to be debated in parliament this week which could lead to a new surveillance agency to monitor internet users. With the help of internet service providers and tip-offs from music and film companies, those who illegally download music, films or video games would be identified. They would receive an email warning, followed by a letter, and if caught again would see their internet access cut off for up to a year.

Related article: France Cracks Down on Internet Downloads (TIME)

The bill is a pet project of the president, Nicolas Sarkozy, who has taken advice from music and film industry leaders, who have warned that the country’s creative industries are on their knees as a result of illegal downloading. The president’s wife, the singer Carla Bruni, has long advocated a crackdown on piracy.

Brown furious at Sarkozy VAT attack

February 6, 2009 by Infinite

Gordon Brown, Britain’s prime minister, was left fuming on Friday after Nicolas Sarkozy, French president, denounced his flagship VAT-cutting plan and gave a picture of a Britain where industry was finished and the banks lay “close to ruin”.

Mr Sarkozy’s comments are a political gift to David Cameron, the opposition Conservative leader, and deal a blow to Mr Brown’s efforts to cement a common European position on how to fight the recession ahead of a G20 summit of world leaders in London in April.

The French president told a domestic television audience on Thursday night he would not be following Mr Brown in cutting VAT temporarily by 2.5 per cent, claiming the policy was having “absolutely no impact”.

Hundreds of thousands protest in France

January 29, 2009January 29, 2009 by Infinite

Demonstrators in Nice, France, on Thursday. (Lionel Cironneau/The Associated Press)

PARIS: A nationwide protest against Nicolas Sarkozy’s economic policies drew more than one million demonstrators into the streets of France on Thursday, in the biggest popular challenge to the president since he took office in 2007.

Related article: Huge crowds join French strikes (BBC News)

China says Sarkozy will pay for meeting Dalai Lama

December 8, 2008 by Infinite

France President Nicolas Sarkozy (L) is greeted by Tibet’s exiled spiritual leader the Dalai Lama in Gdansk December 6, 2008. Sarkozy will pay a “heavy price” for meeting the Dalai Lama, a Chinese state paper said on Monday, keeping up Beijing’s vitriol over Sarkozy’s 30-minute encounter with the exiled Buddhist leader. REUTERS/Eric Feferberg/Pool

BEIJING (Reuters) – French President Nicolas Sarkozy will pay a “heavy price” for meeting the Dalai Lama, a Chinese state paper said on Monday, keeping up Beijing’s vitriol over Sarkozy’s 30-minute encounter with the exiled Buddhist leader.

Beijing brands the Dalai Lama a dangerous “splittist” for demanding self-determination for Tibet and was incensed by Sarkozy’s meeting on Saturday with the 73-year-old Buddhist monk.

Sarkozy told the Dalai Lama at their meeting in Poland that Europe shared his concerns over his homeland, which the Dalai Lama fled after a failed uprising against Chinese rule in 1959.

Chinese Vice Foreign Minister He Yafei on Sunday said it was up to France to “fully understand the damage” done to relations by Sarkozy, who holds the rotating presidency of the European Union until the end of the year.

Now the overseas edition of the People’s Daily has again warned that China will not easily forget the meeting, accusing Sarkozy of opportunism and trampling on China’s interests.

“He ignored China’s repeated entreaties and stubbornly refused to shift, plainly determined to step over China’s red line,” said an editorial in the newspaper, which acts as the voice of the ruling Communist Party.

“This malicious provocation concerns China’s core interest in national unity and inevitably will exact a heavy price.”

Vladimir Putin ‘wanted to hang Georgian President Saakashvili by the balls’

November 15, 2008 by Infinite

(Dmitry Astahov/AFP/Getty Images)

Vladimir Putin reportedly wanted to hang President Saakashvili “like the Americans hanged Saddam”

Nicolas Sarkozy saved the President of Georgia from being hanged “by the balls” – a threat made last summer by Vladimir Putin, according to an account that emerged yesterday from the Élysée Palace.

The Russian Prime Minister had revealed his plans for disposing of Mr Saakashvili when Mr Sarkozy was in Moscow in August to broker a ceasefire in Georgia.

Jean-David Levitte, Mr Sarkozy’s chief diplomatic adviser, reported the exchange in a news magazine before an EU-Russia summit today. The meeting will be chaired by the French leader and President Medvedev.

With Russian tanks only 30 miles from Tbilisi on August 12, Mr Sarkozy told Mr Putin that the world would not accept the overthrow of Georgia’s Government. According to Mr Levitte, the Russian seemed unconcerned by international reaction. “I am going to hang Saakashvili by the balls,” Mr Putin declared.

Mr Sarkozy thought he had misheard. “Hang him?” – he asked. “Why not?” Mr Putin replied. “The Americans hanged Saddam Hussein.”

Mr Sarkozy, using the familiar tu, tried to reason with him: “Yes but do you want to end up like [President] Bush?” Mr Putin was briefly lost for words, then said: “Ah – you have scored a point there.”

Mr Saakashvili, who was in Paris to meet Mr Sarkozy yesterday, laughed nervously when a French radio station read him the exchange. “I knew about this scene, but not all the details. It’s funny, all the same,” he said.

Palin caught out by ‘President Sarkozy’

November 2, 2008 by Infinite

Canadian radio comedian persuades Republican vice-presidential hopeful he is French leader in prank phone call

Perhaps Sarah Palin should have realised something was amiss when the caller purporting to be France’s president, Nicolas Sarkozy, referred to “my special American adviser, Johnny Halliday”.

Later in the call, maybe, she could have guessed that even the real Sarkozy would be unlikely to refer to his wife, Carla Bruni, as “so hot in bed” or talk about a supposed mutual love of hunting by saying “to take away a life, that is so fun”.

The would-be vice president was, of course, speaking to Canadian comedian Marc-Antoine Audette, part of a radio duo who have made prank calls to a series of world leaders over the years.

Palin didn’t give away anything of real note – except perhaps an ambition to be president herself “maybe in eight years” – or suffer any real embarrassments.

It is interesting, however, to hear Palin’s eager tone of voice and exaggerated politeness (“We love you! Thanks you for talking to me!”) which seemed to go beyond courtesy into sheer fandom.

Maybe Palin – like many others – still can’t believe the position she’s in right now.

Peter Walker
Sunday November 02 2008 10.05 GMT

Source: The Guardian

Sarkozy Calls For European ‘Economic Government’

October 21, 2008 by Infinite

Sarkozy wants top EU economy team

Mr Sarkozy is steering the EU presidency until January

French President Nicolas Sarkozy has called for a European “economic government” to ensure a more united EU response to financial turmoil.

The leaders of the 15-nation eurozone should co-ordinate their actions with the European Central Bank, he said.

Meanwhile the International Monetary Fund (IMF) said Europe should weather the worst of the turmoil thanks to the EU’s “crisis management” measures.

However, the IMF predicts eurozone growth will slow to 0.2% next year.

That compares with a predicted rate of 1.3% this year and 1.4% in 2010.

In its latest assessment, the IMF forecasts that the Irish Republic and Italy will prove to be in recession already, with growth figures for 2008 of -1.8% and -0.1% respectively.

Both would remain in recession next year, with Spain joining them.

Worst slump since Great Depression

October 20, 2008 by Infinite

Major industrialised economies will suffer the worst slump since the 1930s, according to new research from Deutsche Bank.

Worst slump since Great Depression: Bud Fields and his family in their home during the Great Depression in Alabama, 1935. Photo: Corbis

The warning underlines the fact that policymakers have failed to prevent the financial crisis from turning into a full-blown economic slump. It comes as world leaders agreed to hold a summit in New York billed as the “Bretton Woods meeting for the 21st century”.

In its major assessment of the global economy’s health, Deutsche Bank also warned that Britain is even more vulnerable than the US or the euro area, as it predicted that the powerhouses of India and China would fail to support the wider global economy through the downturn.

The banks’ economists Thomas Mayer and Peter Hooper said: “We now expect a major recession for the world economy over the year ahead, with growth in the industrial countries falling to its lowest level since the Great Depression and global growth falling to 1.2pc, its lowest level since the severe downturn of the early 1980s.”

According to the International Monetary Fund, global growth of anything less than 3pc constitutes a world recession. The warning was echoed by Richard Berner of Morgan Stanley, who said: “A global recession is now under way, and risks are still pointed to the downside for commodity prices and earnings.”

Financial crisis: Christine Lagarde warned Hank Paulson to bail out Lehman Brothers

October 17, 2008 by Infinite

Christine Lagarde, the French finance minister, warned her US counterpart Hank Paulson that he had to bail out US investment bank Lehman Brothers or face global financial collapse, but her advice went unheeded.

Financial crisis: France's finance minister Christine Lagarde
Christine Lagarde, the French finance minister, warned her US counterpart Hank Paulson that he must bail out US investment bank Lehman Brothers or face global financial collapse, but her advice went unheeded. Photo: Reuters

Sources close to Mrs Lagarde said that she had called the US Treasury Secretary – a close personal friend – well before the ailing bank’s collapse imploring him to act, but he chose not to.

Lehman Brothers’ demise sparked the biggest shake-up on Wall Street in decades and sent shock waves around the world that triggered a massive bailout plan in Britain and Europe.

Mrs Lagarde – attributed with playing a key role in brokering a bailout deal among G7 finance ministers in Washington last weekend – dubbed Mr Paulson’s decision to let the bank go under “horrendous” as it triggered panic in markets and banks to the brink of a 1929-style financial meltdown.

In an interview with the Daily Telegraph, she warned that the world’s hedge funds could be the next institutions to be hit by the financial turmoil.

Mrs Lagarde, a perfect English speaker, said that governments must be “vigilant” over the health of hedge funds. “Initially everybody thought the hedge fund sector would be the first one to actually cause the collapse. They are vastly unregulated, they have been operating at the fringes, at the margin, and we need to be careful that there is no contamination effect,” she said.

Her warning will send a shiver through the $2 trillion (£1.15billion) hedge fund industry, which has doubled in size in the last three years and proved to be one of the most powerful forces in the global financial system.

Coming Soon: The 600 Trillion Derivatives Emergency Meeting

October 17, 2008October 14, 2008 by Infinite

Here is an update on the size of the derivatives market with the latest official figures (.pdf) from the Bank for International Settlements (BIS). Hold your breath, as we are not anymore talking paltry billions but TRILLIONS of whichever fiat currency.

Current emergency meetings on banks and markets are still only in the stage where politicians and central bankers are bickering over how to create a few more hundred billions Euros and FRNs. But toxic MBS pale in comparison to the mushrooming growth of the derivatives market. According to figures released in the quarterly review of the BIS (pp A103) in September the total notional amount of outstanding derivatives in all categories rose 15% to a mindboggling $596 TRILLION as of December 2007.

EU Nations Commit 1.3 Trillion Euros to Bank Bailouts

October 13, 2008 by Infinite

Oct. 13 (Bloomberg) — France, Germany, Spain, the Netherlands and Austria committed 1.3 trillion euros ($1.8 trillion) to guarantee bank loans and take stakes in lenders, racing to prevent the collapse of the financial system.

The announcements came as Britain took majority stakes today in Royal Bank of Scotland Group Plc and HBOS Plc. The coordinated steps followed a pledge yesterday by European leaders to bolster market confidence as the global economy slides toward recession.

“What it should do is stabilize the banking system,” said Peter Hahn, a fellow at London’s Cass Business School and former managing director at Citigroup Inc. “Will it stop us from having a recession? No, nothing is going to stop us from having a recession.”

Only state intervention can save us now, says Merkel

October 12, 2008 by Infinite

BERLIN: Only the state can restore trust to financial markets now, German Chancellor Angela Merkel was quoted as saying on Sunday amid reports that Berlin was about to unveil a huge rescue package for its banks.

“Only action by the state is capable of restoring the necessary trust,” Merkel was quoted as saying by the Bild am Sonntag weekly following talks on Saturday in France with President Nicolas Sarkozy.

“In this it is important that countries do not act unilaterally but that we coordinate at European and international level and then implement the measures within our national responsibilities,” Merkel said.

IMF in global meltdown warning

October 12, 2008 by Infinite

Strauss-Kahn said rich nations had so far failed to restore confidence

The world financial system is teetering on the “brink of systemic meltdown”, the head of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) has warned in Washington.

Dominique Strauss-Kahn said rich nations had so far failed to restore confidence, but he endorsed a new action plan by the G7 group.

He also said the IMF was ready to lend to countries in dire need of capital.

The 15 eurozone leaders will meet in Paris later to try to establish a common approach to the markets crisis.

French President Nicolas Sarkozy and German Chancellor Angela Merkel said they would present a number of proposals at the summit to ease the credit freeze that has caused the collapse of several leading international banks.

But after meeting in Paris on Saturday, the two leaders said the summit would not result in a joint financial rescue fund for Europe, in the model of a $700bn rescue by the US government.

France’s former elite go on trial over arms trade

October 7, 2008 by Infinite

The son of a former French president, an Israeli-Russian billionaire and a tycoon with ties to Arizona’s jet set were among the headliners yesterday as 42 defendants went on trial in Paris, accused in a worldwide web of trafficked arms to Angola, money laundering and kickbacks.

Defense lawyers and Angola’s government are trying to stop the show, however, arguing the trial has no right to go on.

Prosecutors allege that between 1993 and 1998, two key suspects – French magnate Pierre Falcone, a longtime resident of Scottsdale, Arizona, and Arkady Gaydamak, an Israeli businessman based in France at the time – organized a total of $791 million in Russian arms sales to Angola, a breach of French government rules.

Most of the other suspects are accused of receiving money or gifts, undeclared to tax authorities, from a company run by Falcone in exchange for political or commercial favors. Investigators say the corruption grew into a tangle of laundered money and parallel diplomacy that left a stain on France’s relations with Africa.

Among the defendants who filed into a Paris courthouse Monday were icons of France’s political elite – including late President Francois Mitterrand’s eldest son, Jean-Christophe, and an economic adviser to current President Nicolas Sarkozy, Jacques Attali.

Europe fights financial storm as bank deal collapses

October 5, 2008 by Infinite

Nicolas Sarkozy (C) flanked by Angela Merkel (L) and Gordon Brown

PARIS (AFP) – The leaders of Europe’s four main economic powers vowed to protect fragile banks in their fight against the global credit crisis as the biggest rescue in German financial history collapsed.

France, Germany, Britain and Italy put on a united front, promising a more coordinated approach to the credit crunch, although Germany’s Chancellor Angela Merkel insisted states would mainly act individually.

World economic crisis: France moves into recession

October 4, 2008 by Infinite

The French premier, Francois Fillon, today warned that the world was “on the edge of the abyss” as his country moved into an official recession.

Fillon’s comments, blaming an “irresponsible” financial system, came as the Dutch government seized control of bancassurer Fortis’s Netherlands operations in a €16.8bn (£13.06bn) deal greed with the Belgian and Luxembourg authorities.

The effective nationalisation, forced upon the governments by the scale of the financial meltdown, includes Fortis’s interests in Dutch bank ABN Amro.

The shock decision came just days after the three governments injected €11.2bn into Fortis, Belgium’s biggest bank, to keep it afloat.

Medvedev: Georgia attack is ‘Russia’s 9/11’

September 12, 2008 by Infinite

Mr Medvedev said he hoped lessons would be learned from August’s events

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev has described Georgia’s assault on South Ossetia as Russia’s 9/11.

He said the world had learnt lessons from the attacks in the US on 11 September 2001 and hoped the same would happen after events in the Caucasus.

Reports say Russian troops are showing signs of preparing to pull back from inside Georgia.