The New York Times CLIFFORD J. LEVY March 1, 2009

KIEV, Ukraine — Steel and chemical factories, once the muscle of Ukraine’s economy, are dismissing thousands of workers. Cities have had days without heat or water because they cannot pay their bills, and Kiev’s subway service is being threatened. Lines are sprouting at banks, the currency is wilting and even a government default seems possible.

The sign held by Vasily Kirilyuk, an unemployed plumber camped out with other antigovernment demonstrators here in the past week, summed up the pervasive frustration: “Get rid of them all,” it said.

That the public is being watched by Big Brother at every turn is deeply alarming. That the innocent were being tracked going about their every day lives while a blind eye was being turned to a financial sector apparently hell-bent on destruction is unforgivable.

Prime Minister Ivars Godmanis, who presented his resignation to President Valdis Zatlers on Friday, had been in power only since December 2007. But the precipitous plunge of Latvia's economy, which helped provoke the worst riot since 1991 last month, played a major part in the government's downfall.

Latvia's center-right coalition government collapsed Friday, a victim of the country's growing economic and political turmoil and the second European government, after Iceland, to disintegrate because of the international financial crisis.

Up to 100,000 people have gathered in Dublin city centre to protest at the Irish government's handling of the country's recession.

Many are angry at plans to impose a pension levy on public sector workers.

Trade union organisers of the march said workers did not cause the economic crisis but were having to pay for it.

CONCLUSION

The West's economy really is at the edge of a leveraged disaster. The politicians know only one answer: deficit spending. The central bankers have only on significant tool: monetary inflation. The speed of events is increasing.

The markets don't reflect this yet. This gives time to a few people to get out. But the vast majority cannot get out. There are too few escape hatches open.

With all the hype from various US dollar bears about the crisis with US banks, few on this side of the Atlantic are paying any attention to happenings in Europe.

For those who look, a strong case can be made that European banks are as bad off if not much worse off than their US counterparts.

Eastern Europe is about to blow. If it does, it could take much of the EU with it. It's an emergency situation but there are no easy solutions. The IMF doesn't have the resources for a bailout of this size and the recession is spreading faster than relief efforts can be organized. Finance ministers and central bankers are running in circles trying to put out one fire after another. Its only a matter of time before they are overtaken by events. If one country is allowed to default, the dominoes could begin to tumble through the whole region. This could trigger dramatic changes in the political landscape. The rise of fascism is no longer out of the question.

"Moscow had offered Washington access to data from the Soviet-built radar station, which it leases from the Azeri government, as an alternative to US plans to station elements of a missile defence shield in Eastern Europe."

Gosh, who would benefit from the United States and Russia NOT having any Rapprochement and dialogue?

The Bank of England was set to cut record low interest rates yet further on Thursday and a Japanese central banker said unconventional policies could be needed to stave off the global crisis.

European shares fell in early trading on a large writedown by insurer Swiss Re, while rising bad loans at Spain's biggest bank Santander and a bleak outlook at Deutsche Bank fuelled concerns about the wider economy.

published: 30.01.2009, 15:38 | updated: 30.01.2009 15:51:23
Czech hospital should pay 3 million to parents for mix-up of kids

Brno - The hospital in Trebic, south Moravia, has to pay a total compensation of 3.3 million crowns to the families of Nikola and Veronika, two baby girls whom the hospital staff mixed up and gave to incorrect parents after their birth, under a court decision today.The families demanded a compensation of 12 million crowns.

The hospital admitted its mistake and offered 600,000 crowns to the families, a sum the parents rejected as too low.

The two girls were born in December 2006. After several months one of the fathers, Libor Broza, applied for a DNA test on suspicion that "his" daughter was not his.

"I don't think that there is any global warming," said the 67-year-old liberal, whose country holds the rotating presidency of the European Union. "I don't see the statistical data for that."

Just another step in implementing the breathing tax. See Also The Great Global Warming Swindle

Financial crises, the recent gas dispute with Ukraine and his love of chocolate these are some of the issues Prime Minister Vladimir Putin touched upon in an interview with American news agency Bloomberg.

Iceland's prime minister says his ruling coalition has collapsed under pressure from the global financial crisis. Geir Haarde said he will speak to the president, Olafur Ragnar Grimsson, Monday in an effort to dissolve the government.

A hurried resolution to the Ukraine-Russia gas war was reached during a visit to Moscow by Ukrainian Prime Minister Yulia Timoshenko to meet with her Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin this week. Ukraine finally agreed to pay higher European prices for Russian gas in 2010, after a 20 percent discount in 2009.

This accord came in the wake of sharp criticism of Ukraine by European leaders and Putin’s first official visit to Germany as prime minister, where he presented a more ambitious long-term solution to the unending troubles with Ukraine that have left European countries without winter fuel more than once. His proposal involves leading European energy companies forming a consortium with Russia’s Gazprom to ensure that Russian supplies reach their destination.

Siberian gas started flowing into the EU yesterday, ending the bitter dispute between Russia and Ukraine that shredded both countries' reputations as fuel suppliers and left Europe desperately seeking to shift its energy policies away from dependence on Russian monopolies.

A new 10-year deal on gas pricing and transit between the Russian and Ukrainian state gas firms, Gazprom and Naftogaz, saw Russia pumping the gas through Ukraine's pipelines to Slovakia in the EU while Kiev allowed the fuel to flow without interruption.

The resumption of supplies appeared to end the worst, so far, of a series of disputes of distinctly political hue between Russia and its former Soviet underling, Ukraine.

Ethnic Albanians have committed ghastly crimes in Kosovo and Metohija, and among those that are to be held responsible for the massive murders of Serbs are former commander of the (so-called) Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) and Kosovo premier, Ramus Haradinaj and Agim Cheku respetively, the Italian weekly magazine Panorama has set out in an analytical article, publishing for the first time the photos of Serb victims.

Before the (1999) NATO bombing campaign Serbs were accused of being butchers, but as soon the forces of the Atlantic Pact marched into Kosovo in June 1999, they became the victims of an ethnic cleansing, the Milan weekly assessed.

Regardless of government action - we're all really on our own. Pain-free solutions to colossal problems seem against the laws of nature. Perhaps the best advice is the Boy Scout motto: "Be Prepared."

The Ukraine has once again refused to fulfill the request of the Russian energy monopoly "Gazprom" for the transit of 99,2 M cubic meter of gas, the Russian information agency "Novosti" reported Friday.

Novosti are quoting the spokesperson of the Ukrainian "Naftogaz" Valentin Zemlyansky.

Zemlyansky confirmed that the transit of Russian gas through the Ukrainian territory remains impossible.

"Our answer is the same as the one from yesterday: a technology agreement first, gas transit second," the spokesperson declared.

In the mean time there is growing frustration with both countries among European officials.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who is due to meet Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin in Germany on Friday, warned that Russia could damage its reputation as a reliable energy supplier if the dispute continued.

It is little known that the country of Ukraine contains much of the storage and trasmission infrastructure that feeds NG from Russian (GazProm) gas fields to European customers.

This story confirms that it is the Ukraine that is holding up NG from being supplied to Europe. Holding Europe hostage while the western MSM is vilifying Russian and Putin.

Preamble
The United States of America and Ukraine:

1. Affirm the importance of our relationship as friends and strategic partners. We intend to deepen our partnership to the benefit of both nations and expand our cooperation across a broad spectrum of mutual priorities.
2. Emphasize that this cooperation between our two democracies is based on shared values and interests. These include expanding democracy and economic freedom, protecting security and territorial integrity, strengthening the rule of law, and supporting innovation and technological advances.
3. Stress our mutual desire to strengthen our relationship across the economic, political, diplomatic, cultural, and security fields.

I wish to examine, however, if other parties might benefit from this dispute. It would be a simple matter to plan this dispute and to predict Russia’s response.

It is highly probable, therefore, perhaps 90 per cent probability, that the US has offered inducements for Ukraine to disrupt gas transit to the EU in order to create insecurity about Russian supplies and gain support for its Afghanistan war. This would be very easy. One million dollars each in the Swiss accounts of, say, 20-40 key politicians and officials and Ukraine’s performance is guaranteed. And cheap. Paul Craig Roberts, who was assistant secretary of the Treasury in the Reagan administration, says that in post he learned that simply giving cash is the preferred means of getting other countries, including Europe, to do what the US wants.

Gazprom says all transit of Russian gas to Europe through Ukraine has been stopped. The move was proposed by the company CEO, Aleksey Miller, and agreed to by Russia's Prime Minister Vladimir Putin.

Gazprom says that Ukraine has shut all four pipelines which send gas to Europe, causing several countries to run out of fuel. But Ukraine claims that Russia stopped delivering all gas to Europe through its territory on Wednesday morning.

Outside, the temperature plummeted to minus 12. Inside, the gas stopped flowing to homes in some of Europe's eastern cities in the dead of night and stayed off all day while the thermometer stayed below zero.

Tens of thousands living on the shores of the Black Sea were the first to feel the bitter impact of Russia's dispute with Ukraine over gas payments on the coldest day of the year.

With even icier conditions forecast for this week, the gas flow from Russia dried up during the day to nine countries, leading Bulgaria and Slovakia to consider declaring states of emergency and others to warn that just a few days' reserves remained.

Italian president and media baron Silvio Berlusconi said today that he would use his country's imminent presidency of the G8 group to push for an international agreement to "regulate the internet".

Speaking to Italian postal workers, Reuters reports Berlusconi said: "The G8 has as its task the regulation of financial markets... I think the next G8 can bring to the table a proposal for a regulation of the internet."

I'm not sure about you, but this seems like a terrific new leader for the EU - an Austrian School economist who believes in liberty and sovereignty, and agrees with the majority of the citizens of the world that all these bailouts are the wrong way to solve problems we are facing.

DETAILED INFORMATION on the web pages people view will be retained for possible future criminal investigations if telecommunications operators comply with a letter from the Garda Commissioner.

The request for real-time web-browsing information - the content or the web address (URL) of every web page browsed by users of mobile handsets, palmtop devices or 3G modems - goes beyond the European Union's data retention directive, which the Government intends to implement as a statutory instrument.

The British Broadcasting Corporation is reporting that it has obtained evidence suggesting that Georgia may have committed war crimes during its attack on South Ossetia in August. The BBC says it gathered the evidence during the first unrestricted visit to South Ossetia since the conflict.

Describing Georgia’s military assault as ‘reckless’, UK Foreign Secretary David Miliband said he had raised the ‘war crimes’ allegations with the government in Tbilisi.

Last June, in a national referendum, voters in Ireland rejected the European Union Lisbon Treaty, which was, said opponents, merely a rehashed version of the EU Constitution that had gone down to defeat in 2004. Now, the powers that be in Brussels, headquarters of the European Union, have announced a new effort aimed at "educating" Irish voters for another run at the treaty.

"You will vote for the treaty, dammit!"

President Sarkozy is set for a showdown with Angela Merkel today after infuriating the German Chancellor with the launch of a €100 billion (£80 billion) French sovereign investment fund that he exhorted other European governments to copy.

Brushing aside Berlin's qualms, Mr Sarkozy yesterday outlined plans for the fund as part of a programme to strengthen public sector control over private business. He also promised €175 billion of direct state investment in the economy, over and above the sovereign fund, in the next three years.

he widow of Joerg Haider believes the far-right Austrian politician's death in a car crash may not have been an accident and has saved his body from cremation for a second post mortem, a Vienna newspaper has reported.

Nicholas Sarkozy is now blaming the Irish Prime Minister, Brian Cowen, for igniting a bank deal crisis.
I am Irish and think that the Irish Government plan was about as stupid as you could possibly get but, when Nicholas Sarkozy stands up and pretends to be the bastion of Economic Sagesse, well excuse me, I gotta have my say as this galls me.

Brussels - Russia should be allowed to join the European Union in the coming years, Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi said Wednesday. "I consider Russia to be a Western nation. So my project is that the Russian Federation should become a member of the EU in the coming years," Berlusconi told Italian reporters on the sidelines of an EU summit in Brussels.

Berlusconi's comments on Russia's EU aspirations were not new, but they nevertheless raised eyebrows in Brussels.

Kurt Nimmo
Infowars
Saturday, Oct 18, 2008

If we are to believe the Washington Post, French president and current EU leader Nicolas Sarkozy has pledged to save us from nameless “freewheeling bankers and traders” who get the blame for the current economic crisis.

From George Ure's UrbanSurvival.com:

A sharp-eyed reader in Germany is piecing it together this way:

"Hi George,

Cliff's accuracy is amazing! Not only did he predict correctly the current financial crash, but also his prediction of the three unwanted guests is on the spot - at least for one "guest".

He spoke of "an ['accident' (real or claimed)] which causes a [derailing]. This last may be in the political realm."

The UK government implemented anti-terror laws to freeze the estimated £4 billion worth of British financial assets in a failed Icelandic bank, it has been revealed.

The freezing order against Landsbanki, which owns failed internet bank Icesave, was issued under the 2001 Anti-Terrorism, Crime and Security Act.

The move threatens to drag down British-Icelandic relations to their lowest point for over three decades, with Gordon brown announcing legal action against Reykjavik authorities yesterday to recover depositors' money.

DOZENS of British councils risk losing hundreds of millions in taxpayers' money held in Iceland's stricken banks as shockwaves from the tiny nation's financial collapse reverberate across Europe.

As councils across Britain began contemplating the prospect of raising taxes and cutting services to cover their losses, the two countries squared up for a diplomatic row over Iceland's refusal to refund the deposits.

08/10/08 "CSM" -- -Tskhinvali, South Ossetia - In a speech before the United Nations last month, Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili implored world leaders to set up an international investigation to find out the truth about the war in South Ossetia.

I couldn't agree more. But I think the results of an honest investigation would reveal a very different "truth" than what President Saakashvili claims.

Oct. 6 (Bloomberg) -- The credit crunch deepened in Europe as government leaders pledged to bail out troubled banks and protect depositors.~~snip~~

French President Nicolas Sarkozy, who convened the Oct. 4 meeting, called for a global summit ``as soon as possible'' to implement ``a real and complete reform of the international financial system.'' He said ``all actors'' must be supervised, including credit-rating firms and hedge funds. Executive-pay systems must also be reviewed, he said.

Many of us in the US are focused on our own woes. But this is a global credit crisis. In today's Outside the Box, we take a look at the currency markets, which are in an historic upheaval and also look at what is going on in Europe. I suspect that Europe is in for a period of much distress, as the world begins to deleverage That is why one government after another will back the deposits of banks within their countries, for otherwise capital will flee to countries like Ireland and Germany which ARE guaranteeing the deposits for all banks in their borders. .

Iceland is on the brink of collapse. Inflation and interest rates are raging upwards. The krona, Iceland's currency, is in freefall and is rated just above those of Zimbabwe and Turkmenistan. One of the country's three independent banks has been nationalised, another is asking customers for money, and the discredited government and officials from the central bank have been huddled behind closed doors for three days with still no sign of a plan. International banks won't send any more money and supplies of foreign currency are running out.

Oct. 6 (Bloomberg) -- The euro had its biggest one-day drop against the yen since its debut in 1999 as the deepening credit crisis prompted European governments to pledge bailouts for troubled banks while stopping short of coordinated action.

We face extreme danger. Unless there is immediate intervention on every front by all the major powers acting in concert, we risk a disintegration of global finance within days. Nobody will be spared, unless they own gold bars.

Civil liberties groups fear that the new police database, called Edvige, would significantly erode rights to privacy.

Although governments regularly gather and store data about citizens, Edvige would include information about the youngest members of society.

"These people could be filed starting from the age of thirteen with a very large amount of data on their life, on their relatives, on their friends, acquaintance…everything," says Meryem Marzouki from the French National Scientific Research Center (CNRS).

Central bankers and officials in Iceland are locked in economic bailout talks this weekend, as Gordon Brown attempts to convince European leaders to back a £12bn fund for small businesses across the Continent.

Property lender Hypo Real Estate (HRE) (HRXG.DE: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) fought for its life on Saturday after German banks and insurers pulled out of a state-led 35 billion euro ($48.5 billion) rescue program stitched together only days ago.

The news is a fresh blow for the global financial system struggling to master an unprecedented crisis of confidence and poses a political challenge for the Berlin government, which has been fighting efforts to arrange a pan-European bank bailout.

The leaders of Britain, France, Germany and Italy are meeting in Paris to try and forge a common approach to sort out the European economy. But actions from the leaders can’t come soon enough for many European citizens - they’ve been feeling the pinch for a while.