BRUSSELS – EU, visit by the Prime Ministers of Serbia and Kosovo, Dacic and Thaci, in which they will be meeting with EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton.

Die politische Führung des Vereinigten Königreichs hat in den letzten Monaten eine Beschleunigung des Abzugs angepriesen, und Finanzminister Osborne hat einen sofortigen Abzug der Truppen gefordert, indem er sagte, dass diese keinem ersichtlichen Zweck dienen.

Der Präsident des Parlaments der Republik Zypern, Yiannakis Omirou, hat in einer dramatischen Verlautbarung angekündigt die Unabhängigkeit und Souveränität seiner Republik sicherzustellen.

„We are in a state of emergency,“ said Mitsopoulos.
The Government had „inherited chaos,“ he added Minister and revealed that the President was considering inviting the opposition parties, AKEL and EDEK, to participate in government to offer a collective response to the situation

President Nicos Anastasiades was responding to allegations traded between the pro-government and opposition press that family members of leading politicians had taken advantage of privileged information to protect their assets from the swingeing hit on bank deposits imposed by international creditors last month.

GERMAN Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble has said savings accounts in the euro zone are safe, adding that Cyprus is a „special case“ and not a template for future rescues.

(31.03.) For the better understanding of the resolution measures implemented under the Resolution of Credit and Other Institutions Law, 2013 at the Bank of Cyprus and Laiki Bank, following the agreement of the Eurogroup with the Cyprus Government on 25 March 2013, the Central Bank of Cyprus (CBC) would like to clarify the following points:

There is no other alternative but to free Cyprus from the bonds of the troika and the memorandum, House of Representatives President Yiannakis Omirou has said.

It is added that government services and independent offices will accept checks by all financial institutions under certain conditions.

Cries for the banker’s removal picked up pace, culminating in the tabling of a parliamentary resolution on Thursday, which was however postponed after MPs had second thoughts.

Criticism continued to rain down on President Giorgio Napolitano Monday over his appointment of 10 so-called wise men asked to find a way out of Italy‘s political deadlock.

Cyprus‘ banking authorities have brought about a worldwide unprecedented recapitalization of the eastern Mediterranean island‘s crippled banking system by using depositors‘ money and forcing the merger of the two largest banks.

Six out of 10 Greeks fear a Cyprus-like „haircut“ on bank savings in the near future, an opinion survey showed on Sunday, as labor unions resumed anti-austerity protests in Athens ahead of a new troika audit later this week.

Most comments have been far more level-headed but anti-Germany sentiments have reached levels not seen in a long time. Within Germany itself, however, the decision to tax Cypriot depositors continue to enjoy wide-ranging support, as does the wider austerity-driven approach to the crisis.

In the aftermath of the banking crisis in Cyprus, the world’s attention is gripped by the problems experienced by the Italian and Spanish banking systems.

It is too soon to determine the effects of the situation in Cyprus and the pressure from the Bank of Spain on the system to limit deposit compensation to prevent too-high competitiveness from affecting profit margins.

Roger Albinyana: Secretary of Foreign Affairs of the Generalitat (Catalan Government)

Government plans to offer olive branch to quell premier Mas’s breakaway drive

Danger of rift with PP regional barons

The International Rescue Committee (IRC) today announced the appointment of David Miliband, 47, former Foreign Secretary of the United Kingdom, as its president and CEO, effective September this year. He will succeed George Rupp, who has led the global humanitarian relief and development organization since stepping down as president of Columbia University in 2002.

The International Rescue Committee (IRC) is a nonsectarian, nongovernmental international relief and development organization based in the United States, with operations in over 40 countries.

The UN building will just be a short stroll – or an even quicker drive in a limo – from Miliband‘s new International Rescue Committee office near Grand Central station. (..) Former UN secretary general Kofi Annan, and former US secretaries of state, Colin Powell, Henry Kissinger, Madeleine Albright and Condoleezza Rice all act as IRC advisers.

Parliament’s centrality needs to be restored. In order to do that, it’s urgent that the Committees are set up to examine proposed laws. More than a month has passed since the election, and the Committees have still not been set up. The result is a slowing down of legislative activity that could right now be dealing with topics like the new electoral law, conflict of interests, citizen incomes, the law on corruption, and the abolition of the IRAP regional tax on production.
Who is opposed to these Committees? Why’s that? For weeks now, the M5S has been proposing that they be created immediately, but this idea has fallen on the deaf ears of the parties and of the institutions.

They are former House speaker Luciano Violante of the centre-left Democratic Party (PD), Senator Gaetano Quagliariello of ex-premier Silvio Berlusconi‘s People of Freedom (PdL) party, Mario Mauro of outgoing Premier Mario Monti‘s Civic Choice group, Northern League MP Giancarlo Giorgetti and Filippo Bubbico, a PD Senator.

Von Paul Craig Roberts
Institute for Political Economy, 24.03.13

Hinweis: In letzter Zeit habe ich viele Interviews gegeben. Wenn Sie Zeit haben sollten, empfehle ich Ihnen, sie nicht mit Videospielen zu verplempern, sondern die Interviews anzuschauen.

Das historische Versagen der Linken, gewisse Kollegen würden es ein “Verkacken im Industriemaßstab” nennen, setzt dem Ganzen die Krone auf. Der Euro hat sich seit seiner Einführung als ein Vehikel erwiesen geboren aus Betrug und Dilettantismus, Herrschsucht und Gier, kurzum: In der Spätphase des Nachkriegskapitalismus der Bagger, der das Grab aushob, in dem Demokratie und Sozialstaat verscharrt wurden. Wer wenn nicht die ‘Linke’ musste das kommen sehen? Wer wenn nicht die ‘Linke’ muss das analysieren, anprangern und dagegen vorgehen?

In his novel Fatherland, Robert Harris envisaged a hellish scenario – Hitler won the second world war. Decades later, the Greater German Reich extends from the Rhine to the Caspian Sea. The rest of Europe, though notionally consisting of independent states, is really under the Nazi jackboot.

Sound familiar?

As daily Kathimerini reports, negotiations with troika mission chiefs, who are expected in Athens by Thursday, are expected to focus on a much-delayed downsizing of the civil service, on lagging tax collection and on the planned merger of National Bank and Eurobank.

Wonkblog economics editor Neil Irwin has a book coming out this week. “The Alchemists: Three Central Bankers and a World on Fire” (The Penguin Press, available April 4) tells the story of how central bankers came to exert vast influence over the global economy, and how they wielded that power from 2007 to 2012, through the financial crisis and its aftermath. Based on behind-the-scenes reporting that took place 27 cities in 11 countries, the book covers the global reach of the crisis through which the world is still living and puts it in its historical context.