Must read

But Mr. Trichet's anti-inflation rhetoric was overshadowed by the unfolding crisis in Greece. European leaders are scrambling to put together another aid package by July to keep Athens afloat, and which role the private sector should play has become a major sticking point.

Germany and the ECB are on a collision course, and time is running out before Greece runs out of cash in mid-July.

Germany is so far refusing to make new money available unless Greek bondholders carry part of the burden via a bond swap. German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schäuble raised the stakes earlier this week by writing Mr. Trichet and euro-zone finance ministers a letter spelling out a seven-year bond-maturity-extension plan via a debt swap that he said would bring a "quantified and substantial contribution of bondholders."

The ECB's consent to such a swap is needed because the central bank must agree to accept the restructured Greek bonds as collateral for loans to banks. Otherwise, Greece's banks could face collapse. But ECB officials have insisted they can't accept Greek government bonds as collateral if Greece is technically in default, warning that even a simple form of Greek debt restructuring could undermine fragile investor confidence in the bonds and banks of other struggling countries on the euro-zone periphery.

The ECB won't budge on its collateral rules, Mr. Trichet said on Thursday.

The ECB, backed by the French government, supports a strictly voluntary agreement by banks to buy new Greek bonds when existing bonds mature. Berlin thinks such a gentleman's agreement would be insufficient, and wants to start negotiating with banks to swap soon-to-mature Greek debt for new paper, using a mixture of incentives and threats.

Ratings agencies have suggested the German plan would be considered a debt default by Greece, even if European officials try to present the exchanges as voluntary.

"It's hard to imagine a voluntary situation" for private-sector holders of Greek debt, said Bart Oosterveld, managing director at Moody's Investors Service.

Mr. Trichet said the ECB wouldn't participate in any debt rollover with its own Greek bond holdings. The ECB has purchased more than €75 billion ($109 billion) of government bonds of peripheral euro-zone countries. It doesn't provide a breakdown, but economists estimate that its Greek bond stake exceeds €40 billion.

Mr. Trichet repeatedly declined to comment on the specifics of Mr. Schäuble's proposal, saying he is "not embarking on a dialogue" with individual ministries. Still, the implication of his remarks was clear, analysts said: Berlin's plan is a nonstarter in Frankfurt.

"It's a giant poker game, and it's hard to predict what will happen," said Melvyn Krauss, senior fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University, California.

In a nod to the problems facing the periphery, the ECB voted to extend unlimited loans to commercial banks at low interest rates at least through the third quarter.

Those loans are a lifeline to Greek and Irish banks that can't meet their funding needs in the private markets.

Write to Brian Blackstone at brian.blackstone@dowjones.com

Source

online.wsj.com/article/...5641718831946.html?mod=ITP_pageone_3

If a central bank transfers less money to other central banks than it receives through the system, it acquires a claim on the system; if it transfers more money than it receives, it develops a liability. TARGET2 plays no role in the creation of central bank money, which is done through the ECB's regular refinancing operations. Crucially, the Bundesbank's TARGET2 claims aren't against other central banks, they are against the whole Eurosystem. Were any one counterparty of the system to default, the losses would be shared by other members, according to the ECB's capital key, which reflects the respective "stakes" of the member states in the system.

No one knows this better than the Bundesbank, which was virtually the only Eurosystem counterparty of Lehman Brothers when it defaulted, and was able to defray around three-quarters of the loss it suffered among its partners in the Eurosystem.

All numbers involving TARGET2 are necessarily huge. The system clears more than €2 trillion a day, and, it's only fair to admit, the imbalances in the current accounts of individual euro-zone members make any snapshot of claims and liabilities in the system look lopsided.

But the euro zone has always had problems with internal current-account balances: they have only become visible in the TARGET2 balances since the private sector refused to finance them. As such, the TARGET2 imbalances reflect only the long-known fact that the ECB temporarily took over the role of credit intermediary during the crisis. That it is taking longer to shake off this role is hardly a secret, but Ireland, Spain and Portugal have all taken clear steps to have their banking systems develerage and recapitalize. If given time, they will take that role back from the ECB and the TARGET imbalances will wither. As Professor Sinn knows, the alternative to this intermediation is a disorderly default.

His logic becomes more strained when he says this "forced capital export" from Germany is crowding out lending by German banks to (presumably more virtuous, profitable and deserving) local borrowers. This is just plain wrong. The ECB is operating a policy of unlimited liquidity. Any bank that wants to refinance a loan to a private-sector counterparty is able to do so through the ECB's regular open-market operations. There is no credit-rationing in Germany, as the Bundesbank has repeatedly testified in its own publications. If anything, the reverse is happening. Credit should be tighter in Germany because of its boom, but ECB interest rate policy is ensuring that it stays loose.

By Professor Sinn's reasoning, the more current-account deficits accumulate at the periphery, the harder German banks would find it to lend locally. This isn't happening. For one thing, the ECB's bank lending surveys have shown a gradual easing of credit standards during the period in which the TARGET2 imbalances have arisen, with only a modest tightening in April's survey. And if I haven't taken out a loan from my bank (Commerzbank), it's certainly no fault of Frau Krüger, my untiring branch rep, or of the bank's equally energetic direct-mail operations. But you don't have to take my word for it: This is from Ifo's press release in May on its own indicator of credit constraints: "The economic upswing in Germany is being fuelled by unusually strong domestic investment activity that is supported, if not triggered, by the favourable lending conditions of the banks. The credit hurdle for small manufacturers is now lower than at any time since the introduction of the survey."

Hmm.

The ECB's real risk is in the money it lent to commercial banks. Of the €418 billion in loans outstanding, almost two-thirds is to banks in the four problem countries, and much of that is secured against collateral that isn't even sovereign-quality. Well-informed acquaintances of mine take Professor Sinn's presentation as representing additional exposures, whereas the TARGET imbalances are—at most—a snapshot of the same problem from a different angle.

It is tempting to think that this was Professor Sinn's intention all along–to ratchet up populist German mistrust of the periphery. He has been the arch-exponent of a biased German narrative of the crisis: a narrative that dumps all blame on lazy Mediterranean types and Irish hucksters, and ignores the failure of Germany to adhere to and enforce the Stability and Growth Pact, the recklessness of German banks in fuelling the bubble, and the inability of German regulators to stop them. The euro has enough real problems without worrying about bogus ones like TARGET2.

Write to Geoffrey T. Smith at geoffrey.smith@dowjones.com

Source

online.wsj.com/article/...3488.html?mod=WSJ_hp_us_mostpop_read

Nicht der Artkel ist interessant für mich aber deren Comments von den Lesern.
Eine kostliche Probe ;

pumpernickel

Captain ...

Whilst I in general are with you on the Euro I have not heard of any poll here in Germany. Sadly most Germans, if asked, will reply „let the Greeks swing“ and „to hell with the banks“.

Informed Germans will say „Let's help the Greeks but only if they are willing and seen to be willing to take their medecin, if not, let them swing „ and „in any case, let's make sure the banks get severe haircuts but let's protect pension funds, if possible“.

Realistic Germans will say „We have no choice. They have us by the short and curlies and not helping them could trigger Lehman 2, so we better hand over the lolly. If only we could put all the Greeks together with our banksters and politicians on a space shuttle to the planet Pluto with fuel only for the one-way trip.“ Pluto is composed primarily of rock and ice . Pluto's temperature is about −230 °C.

I believe this is more or less how Germans feel about it.

Source:

Germany and ECB disagree over Greece
The stand-off between Germany and the European Central Bank over the Greek debt crisis intensified yesterday causing further unrest in the debt markets.

www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/...d-ECB-disagree-over-Greece.html

richardjones

The USA, a trading economy, is trying to boot the $ through QE and the generation of internal and external demand, catalysed by a 'cheap currency'.
The euro is, apart from Germany, Holland, Finland and Estonokia, a centrist, statist, protectionist embryonic economy that needs to have a strong currency to encourage necessary DFI and fight inflation.
One monetary unit, as I see it, whilst strongly and in different ways protecting itself, is not doing anything too nefarious to cause failure of the other. As I blabbed before, these monnies need each other. Thus I'm interested as to your more detailed insight on $ deliberately causing euro subsidence.
Lagarde is supported by the USA because they feel, it may change if Sarkozy and the Eurozone/EU Commission can effectively manipulate her for their own ends, she understands the $ and euro interdependence and is not, as most Americans think of the French, per se anti-Anglo-Saxon. She lived and worked in the USA for many years and is very competente: I worked with and against her there.
DSK is a victim of his own reputation and until the trial opens I am not convinced either way as to his culpability, although his past is full of well-documented felonies of this kind. I suspect what will happen, as I see the maid's lawyer trying to widen the scope, largely increase number of witness and garner incitations of precedence is a mistrial.
Read Meyer's Comparative Criminal Law in the America''s (or American States - title depends on publisher) and note that the mistrial protocols in New York state are compendious and the decision  made by the judge, in chambers - alone.
New York state also, most states do, class physical aggression crimes of first and second degree as crimes of double jeopardy.
Thus if DSK gets a mistrial, and the maid's conceited, self-serving attorney is helping, on the grounds of double jeopardy DSK will walk. Betcha this is what happens...

source
blogs.telegraph.co.uk/finance/andrewlilico/...greece-defaults/

Andrew Lilico

Andrew Lilico is an Economist with Europe Economics, and a member of the Shadow Monetary Policy Committee. He was formerly the Chief Economist of Policy Exchange.

What happens when Greece defaults
By Andrew Lilico Economics Last updated: May 20th, 2011
356 Comments Comment on this article
It is when, not if. Financial markets merely aren’t sure whether it’ll be tomorrow, a month’s time, a year’s time, or two years’ time (it won’t be longer than that). Given that the ECB has played the “final card” it employed to force a bailout upon the Irish – threatening to bankrupt the country’s banking sector – presumably we will now see either another Greek bailout or default within days.
What happens when Greece defaults. Here are a few things:
- Every bank in Greece will instantly go insolvent.
- The Greek government will nationalise every bank in Greece.
- The Greek government will forbid withdrawals from Greek banks.
- To prevent Greek depositors from rioting on the streets, Argentina-2002-style (when the Argentinian president had to flee by helicopter from the roof of the presidential palace to evade a mob of such depositors), the Greek government will declare a curfew, perhaps even general martial law.
- Greece will redenominate all its debts into “New Drachmas” or whatever it calls the new currency (this is a classic ploy of countries defaulting)
- The New Drachma will devalue by some 30-70 per cent (probably around 50 per cent, though perhaps more), effectively defaulting 0n 50 per cent or more of all Greek euro-denominated debts.
- The Irish will, within a few days, walk away from the debts of its banking system.
- The Portuguese government will wait to see whether there is chaos in Greece before deciding whether to default in turn.
- A number of French and German banks will make sufficient losses that they no longer meet regulatory capital adequacy requirements.
- The European Central Bank will become insolvent, given its very high exposure to Greek government debt, and to Greek banking sector and Irish banking sector debt.
- The French and German governments will meet to decide whether (a) to recapitalise the ECB, or (b) to allow the ECB to print money to restore its solvency. (Because the ECB has relatively little foreign currency-denominated exposure, it could in principle print its way out, but this is forbidden by its founding charter.  On the other hand, the EU Treaty explicitly, and in terms, forbids the form of bailouts used for Greece, Portugal and Ireland, but a little thing like their being blatantly illegal hasn’t prevented that from happening, so it’s not intrinsically obvious that its being illegal for the ECB to print its way out will prove much of a hurdle.)
- They will recapitalise, and recapitalise their own banks, but declare an end to all bailouts.
- There will be carnage in the market for Spanish banking sector bonds, as bondholders anticipate imposed debt-equity swaps.
- This assumption will prove justified, as the Spaniards choose to over-ride the structure of current bond contracts in the Spanish banking sector, recapitalising a number of banks via debt-equity swaps.
- Bondholders will take the Spanish Banking Sector to the European Court of Human Rights (and probably other courts, also), claiming violations of property rights. These cases won’t be heard for years. By the time they are finally heard, no-one will care.
- Attention will turn to the British banks. Then we shall see…

Article 125 of the EU Treaty states:
The Union shall not be liable for or assume the commitments of central governments, regional, local or other public authorities, other bodies governed by public law, or public undertakings of any Member State… A Member State shall not be liable for or assume the commitments of central governments, regional, local or other public authorities, other bodies governed by public law, or public undertakings of another Member State
Everyone knows that this Treaty article was violated by the Greek, Irish and Portuguese bailouts. Indeed, senior French politicians have not been shy of spelling matters out. For example, in May last year, French Europe Minister Pierre Lallouche cheerfully declared: “De facto, we have changed the treaty”. Again, Christine Lagarde – now favourite for the IMF job – stated last December: “We violated all the rules because we wanted to close ranks and really rescue the euro zone…The Treaty of Lisbon was very straight-forward. No bailout.”
Now if, say, Greece and Ireland default, then bureaucrats and politicians will have lost lots of my money doing something forbidden by ratified international treaty.
They are going to lost more of tax-payer money (Dr.Schauble / BRD Regierung idea).
Can I sue them, to get some of it back?

By Ian Covie  --
blogs.telegraph.co.uk/finance/ianmcowie/...ash-in-your-wallet/


Each euro banknote’s serial number tells you which country created it. Some could be worth more than others if the Greek crisis causes debt worries to drive a wedge between northern and southern countries in the eurozone.
Worries about sovereign states’ differing abilities to repay their debts prompted world leaders at the G20 Summit in Toronto to pledge they will half their national budget deficits by 2013. But translating words into action will be a more difficult challenge for some than others. For a few, the challenge could prove simply impossible.
Now rising fears about southern European countries’ financial stability mean it could pay to be able to read the code on your euro. Some Germans are already insisting on holding on to euros issued in their own country and passing on those backed by southern states. They know from not too distant history what it feels like to be left holding worthless paper which used to be official currency.
While it may seem far-fetched to worry about the future of one of the world’s largest currencies, the wealthy speculator George Soros expressed doubts last week and several other commentators have done so earlier.
When I called the European Union Parliament and Commission press offices in London this morning to seek their comments , none was forthcoming. To be fair, there was some sort of a fuss about eggs going on and one of the people I spoke to promised to call me back. I’ll let you know if they do.
All euros are backed by the European Central Bank but the serial numbers prefixed with X may be regarded as most secure because they are issued by Germany. N is also a good prefix, because these come from Austria. P, L, U and Z prefixes may also be favoured because these are issued by the authorities in Holland, Finland, France and Belgium.
If you share widespread fears that the euro cannot last in its present form, you might want to avoid notes with the prefixes F, G, M, S, T or Y. These are issued by Malta, Cyprus, Portugal, Italy, Ireland and Greece.
Here and now, in a long-planned move to make life difficult for forgers, about 150m British £20 notes with a picture of Edward Elgar will be replaced as legal tender on Thursday, July 1, by notes with a picture of Adam Smith. When the change was first announced during the last Labour government, I noted how apt it was that Gordon Brown should replace a great English composer with a Scots tax collector – for that was Smith’s day job before he became an economist.
The transition will no doubt be smooth and the Bank of England says it will continue to honour all the notes it has issued.
Let’s hope the same can be said of the European Central Bank and all its euros.

blogs.telegraph.co.uk/finance/edmundconway/...untry-in-europe/

You might be tempted to assume Britain holds the dubious accolade of being the most indebted nation in Europe, when it comes to households. But, in cash terms at least the perhaps surprising answer is that German households owe more than any of their European neighbours. The evidence can be found in this recent European Parliament paper, and the chart which underlines this is this one.

Now, I’m being slightly disingenous here: Germany has a considerably larger population (82m) than the UK (61m) or Spain (46m), so perhaps it’s not a surprise that it has a larger stock of household debt than other nations in Europe.
Nonetheless, even when you compare household debt to disposable income (a pretty good yardstick of how overextended families are), it isn’t as if Germany is a paragon of economic virtue. The chart below shows that Spain has by far the most overextended households, with debts worth over 90pc of their annual disposable income, followed by the UK at around 75pc. But it is striking that Germany actually has more overextended households than Greece, and although its position is improving (while others have seen their indebtedness worsening), it remains severely stretched.

You might be tempted to assume Britain holds the dubious accolade of being the most indebted nation in Europe, when it comes to households. But, in cash terms at least the perhaps surprising answer is that German households owe more than any of their European neighbours. The evidence can be found in this recent European Parliament paper, and the chart which underlines this is this one.

The chart below shows that Spain has by far the most overextended households, with debts worth over 90pc of their annual disposable income, followed by the UK at around 75pc. But it is striking that Germany actually has more overextended households than Greece, and although its position is improving (while others have seen their indebtedness worsening), it remains severely stretched.

Griechenland will Suche nach Öl und Gas international ausschreiben
07.06.11 | 22:25 Uhr  
www.ad-hoc-news.de/...und-gas-international--/de/News/22202321

Griechenland will die Erkundung von Ölvorkommen südlich der Insel Kreta und in dem westlichen Teil des Ionischen Meeres für internationale Unternehmen ausschreiben. In einer Mitteilung des griechischen Umweltministeriums vom Dienstag hieß es, die betreffenden Gebiete sollten bis Mitte 2012 in Erkundungszonen für internationale Öl- und Gasunternehmen aufgeteilt werden.

-------
Was nicht gesagt wurde;
nur bei Kreta gibt es bestätigte über 6 bln cbm von Gas Vorkommnissen.
Seit dem €-Einführung in Griechenland (als Trojanisches-Pferd der US zu Bekämpfung der Währungskonkurenz) "betreut" GS alle griechische Regierungen. Obwohl die Tatsache der Mammut-Entdeckung bei Kreta in Fachkreisen bekannt war, haben die Griechen offiziell nie es zugegeben.
Im Jahr 2003 haben Schweden-Finnland- Norwegen-Dänemark eine 250mlrd € schwere Offerte für den Erwerb (80% für GR, 20% für den Käufer) dieser Vorkommnissen abgegeben. Lange Zeit haben sie sogar keine Antwort darauf bekommen. Die CN ist auch dabei - seit 2005 will CN auf Kreta unbedingt ein Umschlag-Hafen für 10 mln TEU bauen.
Exxon hat Exploatation - Lizenzen für Kretas-Gas schon bekommen.
Warum?
GR sollte raus aus der EU und mit eigener Währung und mit Mrd. aus Gas&Oil durchstarten.
Bis dahin sollten die Euro-Länder (besonders BRD, Luxemburg, Holland, FR, Be) bluten bis Euro Desintegration folgt.
Die US befinden sich in Währungskrieg mi CN, die Chinesen investieren am Meistens in der nicht-Euro Staaten in Europa (UK, Norwegen, Schweden, GB und auch in Spain).
Europa ist ein Spielball für Big_Boys geworden und schon den Krieg um Ressourcen längst verloren.

Mit großen Interessen erwarte ich die Nachrichten aus den Bilderberg-Kreisen.

Once the Bilderberg meeting finishes, a decision on all the forthcoming news will be made.

Diese Informationen habe ich, indem, im TELEGRAPH(UK) gelesen.

The context of Mr. Sarkozy's speech was remarkable, analysts said. European Commission President José Manuel Barroso and Christine Lagarde, French finance minister and prospective International Monetary Fund Managing Director, sat in the front row.

"The symbolism of this speech was extremely important," said Karel Lannoo, head of the Centre for European Policy Studies, a Brussels-based think tank. "He doesn't often speak in public in Brussels like this. This is France trying to recover its status in the EU that it lost to Germany during the euro crisis."

Mr. Lannoo noted that Mr. Sarkozy lectured Mr. Barroso "as if he were a student."

Mr. Sarkozy has been a strong proponent of financial-market regulation, but his language has recently become more specific and forceful. His speech comes as the European Commission, the EU's executive arm, debates several initiatives to regulate derivatives and commodities trading.

The EU, he said, should "be inspired by what the U.S. already has done." Last summer, U.S. legislators passed the Dodd-Frank financial overhaul, which consolidated regulatory agencies, forced more derivatives trading onto exchanges and tightened regulation of credit-rating firms.

Mr. Sarkozy wants the EU to go further, especially in regulating what he called speculation. "In oil, the size of financial markets is currently 35 times that of the physical market," he said on Tuesday, his voice rising. "In agricultural raw materials, on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange alone the total of derivatives annually exchanged is 46 times the world production of wheat." This, he said, "is not how a market economy should function, and we need to act."

"The determination [to regulate financial markets and trading houses] by France is total. I hear that we need fair competition between financial markets, and that we [shouldn't regulate too much]. I know this argument. But let me ask a question: Should we all give up fighting the mafia just because one country fails to fight the mafia? If a country has a deficit in one regulation, does the world have to follow that country?"

Glencore said Mr. Sarkozy's speech didn't concern it because it was engaged in trading physical commodities, not speculation. "We mine and farm commodities in more than 30 countries world-wide, increasing global supply," Simon Buerk, a spokesman, said in an email. "On the marketing side we are engaged in physically moving commodities around the world, ensuring they reach the customers that need them in the most efficient way possible."

Derivatives and futures markets "are already well regulated," said Brian Durkin, chief operating officer of the CME Group Inc., which operates the Chicago Mercantile Exchange. U.S. markets would support a move to align European market rules with those in the U.S., which already has cash deposit requirements in certain circumstances and rules on market manipulation, he said.

A commission spokeswoman declined to comment on Mr. Sarkozy's speech, saying that speeches by two commissioners at the conference were a sufficient response.

Mr. Barroso said the commission will present a proposal in October to force mining companies to disclose more financial information, even if they're not listed. "The commission will publish proposals in October, including an obligation on companies to publish information on their activities," he said. "That is essential to fight the corruption which is seen in some trades. I would appeal to all partners to follow the same approach. Only co-ordinated global action will produce a real solution."

Internal markets commissioner Michel Barnier, who spoke after Mr. Sarkozy, said the commission would propose rules limiting the size of the position any one company can take on financial markets. "A bit like the Americans, we are going to make sure you are not having a dominant operator on the market," he said.

Write to John W. Miller at john.miller@dowjones.com

Source
online.wsj.com/article/...ml?mod=WSJEUROPE_hpp_LEFTTopWhatNews

'For all the talk of another Lehman moment, European banks are a lot less nervous. Just look at interbank rates: j.mp/lWs9VH'

There is a rumour that the will end the CNY and USD peg on sunday

Only a matter of time when this debt blowsup in their faces-- they should be more concerned with their domestic issues than propping up insolvent nations and institutions, but people have to learn the very hard way. Unfortunately sometimes it takes violent revolutions before those lessons are ever learned and change occurs-- you can't own people through debt that is designed to take they're individual right and sovereignty-- history has proven this to be ill-fated thinking.(by AldoHux_IV). THATS RIGHT !!!

Source

www.businessinsider.com/chinese-ghost-cities-2011-5?op=1

My Fazit ; Globalisation's  Results

Moody's Just Put Italian Debt On Downgrade Watch
Gregory White | Jun. 17, 2011, 3:34 PM

Italy's sovereign debt has just been put on downgrade watch by Moody's (via Zero Hedge).
From Moody's (via Zero Hedge):
Moody's Investors Service has today placed Italy's Aa2 local and foreign currency government bond ratings on review for possible downgrade, while affirming its short-term ratings at Prime-1.

The main drivers that prompted the rating review are:

(1) Economic growth challenges due to macroeconomic structural weaknesses and a likely rise in interest rates over time;

(2) Implementation risks surrounding the fiscal consolidation plans that are required to reduce Italy's stock of debt and keep it at affordable levels; and

(3) Risks posed by changing funding conditions for European sovereigns with high levels of debt.
Like we've said before, Italy's weak growth outlook coupled with its unstable political situation is not good news for the country's debt.
The result is a slide in the euro, from above $1.43 to below.


Read more: www.businessinsider.com/...owngrade-watch-2011-6#ixzz1PbX0Wn5o
-------

Lavine rollt schon.

www.businessinsider.com/...0-is-still-headed-to-1500-by-2012-1

My recommendation !!

All that being said, Obama does have the support of serious lawyers, and he himself was a constitutional lawyer, so the idea that just because Johnson and Krass opposed this decision doesn't in itself end it.
But this is still tough.
For some context, see this American Conservative story (from last June) on the war philosophy of Harold Koh, a renowned liberal legal scholar who also has a history of justifying hostile activity.
At the end of March, Harold Koh, top lawyer at the State Department, used his keynote address at the annual confab of the American Society for International Law to make an announcement: the use of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles to kill suspected terrorists is legal. The drone strikes in Pakistan and Afghanistan are lawful because, Koh delineated, they are done only in national self-defense, their proportionality is always precisely calibrated, and they carefully discriminate civilians from combatants.
There’s both more and less to it than that, but the legal argument itself is of minor importance. What matters is that Koh said it. Harold Hongju Koh: renowned human rights advocate; leading theorist of international law (which, the ASIL conventioneers would happily have told you, is much more civilized than mere national law); until last year dean of Yale Law School and therefore unofficial pope of the American legal system, and former director of the school’s Orville H. Schell Jr. Center for International Human Rights; Obama appointee accused by Glenn Beck and likeminded screamers of wanting to smuggle Sharia law into U.S. courts. All of which is to say, if a liberal lion like Harold Koh says drone strikes are lawful, what more do you need to know?


Read more: www.businessinsider.com/...wyers-on-libya-2011-6#ixzz1PbcbkIkD

www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/survey/so/2011/NEW061711A.htm

13.Company: AstraZeneca plc (AZN)
Current Dividend Yield: 7.51%
Sector: Drugs
Country: UK
14.Company: Vodafone Group Plc (VOD)
Current Dividend Yield: 7.42%
Sector: Telecom
Country: UK
15.Company: Westpac Banking Corporation (WBK)
Current Dividend Yield: 7.24%
Sector: Banking
Country: Australia
Note: Dividend yields noted are as of June 21, 2011
The majority of the companies in the above list are in the telecom sector. Nokia’s yield is so high since its stock price fell heavily recently.
Disclosure: Long BBVA, STD

Source

topforeignstocks.com/wp/

A haircut of 30-70% would cripple the balance sheets of the institutions most exposed to Greek fixed income write downs. BNP Paribas (OTCBB:BNPQY), for example, has 5 billion Euro in Greek debt holdings while Societe Generale (OTCBB:SCGLY) carries a 3 billion Euro exposure. A haircut at the higher end of the possible spectrum of 50-70%, as predicted by the S&P would cause many Greek financial institutions such as Alpha Bank (OTCBB:ALBKY) and the National Bank of Greece (NYSE:NBG) to require substantial bailouts.

American Banks
Even the U.S. banks holds $1.8 billion worth of distressed Greek securities with an additional $4.7 billion of holdings in the private sector. When all types of claims and exposures are considered, the United States has $43.1 billion dollars invested in Greece. Bank of America (NYSE:BAC) and JPMorgan Chase (NYSE:JPM) addressed the issue of deteriorating credit conditions in Greece, Portugal, Spain, Italy and Ireland in their latest quarterly reports. JPM does not provide a concrete breakdown of its figures but states "aggregate net exposures to these five countries as measured under the Firm's internal approach were less than $20.0 billion at March 31, 2011, with no one country representing a majority of the exposure".

Bank of America, on the other hand, shows its direct sovereign and non-sovereign exposures to the aforementioned countries; cumulative Greek exposure amounts to only $677 million. Other banks did not reveal their figures.

The Bottom Line
With a CCC debt rating and on the verge of bankruptcy, Greece is now forced to take drastic actions to handle its massive debt load. State asset sales, austerity measure and a steady restructuring process will bode more favorably for investors than either the suggested 70% haircut or the worst case scenario - default. (To learn more, see Credit Default Swaps: An Introduction.)

By Arthur Pinkasovitch

Arthur Pinkasovitch is a Financial Research Analyst at Investopedia and is currently a CFA level 3 candidate. His investment focus is centered on energy and commodities as well as applying basic economics principles to everyday investment analysis. Arthur teaches introductory corporate finance at a local college and is part-owner of a Russian Grocery Store. You can follow Arthur on Twitter.


Read more: stocks.investopedia.com/stock-analysis/...ahooSA#ixzz1QDTKXXbT

for 24th of June , 1 PM

S&P 500: -70. The market action continues to reflect a trading range. Major downside support is at $1,250. Upside resistance begins at $1,300.
Silver: -70. This market is heading for a test of the lower levels of the Donchian trading channel.
Gold: +55. An exit signal at $1,532.73 was given yesterday, as was a sell signal at $1513.18 for short term and intermediate traders only. Major support at $1,480. Major resistance at $1,550.
Crude Oil: -100. This market is at the lower levels of support. We wanted to buy for a trading turn around the $90.07 level which represents a 61.8% Fibonacci retracement. The trend is down based on our Trade Triangle technology.
The Dollar Index: -70. Pretty much the same as yesterday. Our indicators are still negative longer-term for this index. Minor support at $74.50. Resistance at $76.00. Look for a possible test of the upper line of the Donchian channel.
The Thomson Reuters/Jefferies CRB Commodity Index: -100. We are at the lower range of the Donchian channel and the market is oversold. We would not rule out some sort of bounce from current levels. Market is in a downtrend and moved out of the Donchian Channel due to the surprise crude oil announcement out of the White House yesterday.
Every success,
Adam Hewison
President of INO.com
Co-founder of MarketClub

The government of Ireland, for example, just announced that it is set to take its “fair share” of private retirement funds.

Drowning in debt, and faced with unpopular, unrealistic austerity measures, the Irish government announced that it will now tax private pensions to raise 470 million euros (roughly $675 million) per year…

Seizing a portion of the entire country's retirement savings.

But Ireland is not the only country to call this play, nor will it be the last…

Late last year, the French government went through an elaborate process to change its pension laws, “legally” allowing politicians to steal retirement funds from the public in order to pay off other debts.

Other countries' governments have done the same in the past few years: they include Hungary, Poland, Bulgaria, Argentina, and Australia.

Think this couldn't happen in the US?

Well, guess what? It's already happening…

The fact is, public pensions in America have been raided for years.

Congress routinely “borrows” from Social Security to make up budget shortfalls.

What do you think the chances are of Social Security being paid back in full?

Or the chances of the Treasury paying back the government pensions they're using to stave off the debt ceiling?

I don't know about you…

But I think the chances are next to nil.

In fact, I believe Congress' next target for funding new spending is the trillions of dollars in private, individual retirement accounts (IRAs).

How would the US government get away with this?

It's diabolically simple…

First, there will be some big unforeseen market event... another financial catastrophe similar to the market meltdown we saw in 2008 after Fannie and Freddie collapsed.

This is when Congress will step in… citing its desire to “protect” the American people from future market shocks.

Then politicians will mandate that a portion of all managed retirement funds be invested in the “safety and security” of US Treasury bonds.

Does that sound fair?

Well, who asked you anyway? Just be a good citizen and turn over your money already.

After all, the most important part is that the big Wall Street institutions still get their big fees… and the government gets its hands on the mother lode.

This is how I believe US taxpayers will end up being forced to “loan” their hard-earned retirement savings to the government… at rates far below inflation.

But before any of this happens…

Right now, there is a window of opportunity to take action to protect yourself and your retirement money.

You see, I've found a unique way US taxpayers with retirement accounts can set up a special kind of IRA.

I guarantee that not one in 100,000 Americans has ever heard of this…

Yet this simple-to-set-up account allows you to take control of your retirement savings, from the comfort of your own home – and even send it offshore, if you want to.

It's 100% US legal… and best of all, if this scenario comes to pass, the government can't touch a penny of it.

You can buy and store gold and silver coins… hold foreign currencies… buy securities on US and international stock exchanges… purchase agricultural property… or even a beautiful apartment on the beach in some sunny country.

The possibilities are endless.

Best of all, anything and everything you put into this account cannot be touched by the US government if this scenario comes to pass.

That said… the most important thing right now is that you get your retirement money off the radar of the politicians, ASAP… before they pull an Ireland and announce some new measure, virtually overnight.

Because in my experience, these things can happen very, very quickly.

If what I'm saying makes sense to you, I'll give you all the details on this special retirement account.

I'll even give you the number of a good friend and colleague of mine to call, who is the world's leading expert in these kinds of special accounts.
......

more  on www.sovereignman.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/kit3.html

Research shows African Mango extract may offer significant slimming and health benefits. Click image above to enlarge.

source  healthdiscoveriesmag.com/Travel.html

www.crtv.cm/cont/nouvelles/...;table=nouvelles&sub=societe

BUSH MANGO IDENTIFIED AS EFFICIENT FOR WEIGHT LOSE
20/06/2011

STUDIES CARRIED OUT BY THE LABORATORY OF NUTRITIONAL BIOCHEMISTRY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF YAOUNDÉ 1 REVEAL THAT IRVINGIA GABONENSIS IS EFFICIENT IN CONTROLLING BODY WEIGHT.

The research study was initiated in 2005 and later confirmed by nutritionists in the  United States of America.

After the revelation, Irvingia Gabonensis or  bush mango as it is known locally referred to,  has suddenly become of high demand in the US weight loss market.

Competent experts argue that the fruit has the strongest natural fat burner known, so far.

Prof Julius Oben, one of the Cameroonian scientists who took part in the research, indicated that the bush mango burns fats and has no side effects.

The African mango is found in the forest of Leboudi outside Yaoundé. Since its added value was published, the fruit has become increasingly scarce.

Fonka Mutta Beau Bernard

The value of the newly discovered mineral deposits dwarfs the size of Afghanistan’s existing war-bedraggled economy, which is based largely on opium production and narcotics trafficking as well as aid from the United States and other industrialized countries. Afghanistan’s gross domestic product is only about $12 billion.
“This will become the backbone of the Afghan economy,” said Jalil Jumriany, an adviser to the Afghan minister of mines.
American and Afghan officials agreed to discuss the mineral discoveries at a difficult moment in the war in Afghanistan. The American-led offensive in Marja in southern Afghanistan has achieved only limited gains. Meanwhile, charges of corruption and favoritism continue to plague the Karzai government, and Mr. Karzai seems increasingly embittered toward the White House.
So the Obama administration is hungry for some positive news to come out of Afghanistan. Yet the American officials also recognize that the mineral discoveries will almost certainly have a double-edged impact.
Instead of bringing peace, the newfound mineral wealth could lead the Taliban to battle even more fiercely to regain control of the country.
The corruption that is already rampant in the Karzai government could also be amplified by the new wealth, particularly if a handful of well-connected oligarchs, some with personal ties to the president, gain control of the resources. Just last year, Afghanistan’s minister of mines was accused by American officials of accepting a $30 million bribe to award China the rights to develop its copper mine. The minister has since been replaced.
Endless fights could erupt between the central government in Kabul and provincial and tribal leaders in mineral-rich districts. Afghanistan has a national mining law, written with the help of advisers from the World Bank, but it has never faced a serious challenge.
“No one has tested that law; no one knows how it will stand up in a fight between the central government and the provinces,” observed Paul A. Brinkley, deputy undersecretary of defense for business and leader of the Pentagon team that discovered the deposits.
At the same time, American officials fear resource-hungry China will try to dominate the development of Afghanistan’s mineral wealth, which could upset the United States, given its heavy investment in the region. After winning the bid for its Aynak copper mine in Logar Province, China clearly wants more, American officials said.
Another complication is that because Afghanistan has never had much heavy industry before, it has little or no history of environmental protection either. “The big question is, can this be developed in a responsible way, in a way that is environmentally and socially responsible?” Mr. Brinkley said. “No one knows how this will work.”
With virtually no mining industry or infrastructure in place today, it will take decades for Afghanistan to exploit its mineral wealth fully. “This is a country that has no mining culture,” said Jack Medlin, a geologist in the United States Geological Survey’s international affairs program. “They’ve had some small artisanal mines, but now there could be some very, very large mines that will require more than just a gold pan.”
The mineral deposits are scattered throughout the country, including in the southern and eastern regions along the border with Pakistan that have had some of the most intense combat in the American-led war against the Taliban insurgency.
A version of this article appeared in print on June 14, 2010, on page A1
The Pentagon task force has already started trying to help the Afghans set up a system to deal with mineral development. International accounting firms that have expertise in mining contracts have been hired to consult with the Afghan Ministry of Mines, and technical data is being prepared to turn over to multinational mining companies and other potential foreign investors. The Pentagon is helping Afghan officials arrange to start seeking bids on mineral rights by next fall, officials said.
“The Ministry of Mines is not ready to handle this,” Mr. Brinkley said. “We are trying to help them get ready.”
Like much of the recent history of the country, the story of the discovery of Afghanistan’s mineral wealth is one of missed opportunities and the distractions of war.
In 2004, American geologists, sent to Afghanistan as part of a broader reconstruction effort, stumbled across an intriguing series of old charts and data at the library of the Afghan Geological Survey in Kabul that hinted at major mineral deposits in the country. They soon learned that the data had been collected by Soviet mining experts during the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan in the 1980s, but cast aside when the Soviets withdrew in 1989.
During the chaos of the 1990s, when Afghanistan was mired in civil war and later ruled by the Taliban, a small group of Afghan geologists protected the charts by taking them home, and returned them to the Geological Survey’s library only after the American invasion and the ouster of the Taliban in 2001.
“There were maps, but the development did not take place, because you had 30 to 35 years of war,” said Ahmad Hujabre, an Afghan engineer who worked for the Ministry of Mines in the 1970s.
Armed with the old Russian charts, the United States Geological Survey began a series of aerial surveys of Afghanistan’s mineral resources in 2006, using advanced gravity and magnetic measuring equipment attached to an old Navy Orion P-3 aircraft that flew over about 70 percent of the country.
The data from those flights was so promising that in 2007, the geologists returned for an even more sophisticated study, using an old British bomber equipped with instruments that offered a three-dimensional profile of mineral deposits below the earth’s surface. It was the most comprehensive geologic survey of Afghanistan ever conducted.
The handful of American geologists who pored over the new data said the results were astonishing.
But the results gathered dust for two more years, ignored by officials in both the American and Afghan governments. In 2009, a Pentagon task force that had created business development programs in Iraq was transferred to Afghanistan, and came upon the geological data. Until then, no one besides the geologists had bothered to look at the information — and no one had sought to translate the technical data to measure the potential economic value of the mineral deposits.
Soon, the Pentagon business development task force brought in teams of American mining experts to validate the survey’s findings, and then briefed Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates and Mr. Karzai.
So far, the biggest mineral deposits discovered are of iron and copper, and the quantities are large enough to make Afghanistan a major world producer of both, United States officials said. Other finds include large deposits of niobium, a soft metal used in producing superconducting steel, rare earth elements and large gold deposits in Pashtun areas of southern Afghanistan.
Just this month, American geologists working with the Pentagon team have been conducting ground surveys on dry salt lakes in western Afghanistan where they believe there are large deposits of lithium. Pentagon officials said that their initial analysis at one location in Ghazni Province showed the potential for lithium deposits as large of those of Bolivia, which now has the world’s largest known lithium reserves.
For the geologists who are now scouring some of the most remote stretches of Afghanistan to complete the technical studies necessary before the international bidding process is begun, there is a growing sense that they are in the midst of one of the great discoveries of their careers.
“On the ground, it’s very, very, promising,” Mr. Medlin said. “Actually, it’s pretty amazing.”

www.nytimes.com/2010/06/14/world/asia/...als.html?pagewanted=2

source online.wsj.com/article/...24.html?mod=WSJEurope_article_forsub

By YUKA HAYASHI

TOKYO—A former nuclear adviser to Japanese Prime Minister Naoto Kan blasted the government's handling of the crisis, and predicted more revelations of radiation threats to the public in the coming months.

In his first media interview since resigning his post in protest in April, Toshiso Kosako, one of the country's leading experts on radiation safety, said Mr. Kan's government has been slow to test for dangers in the sea and to fish, and has understated certain radiation threats to minimize clean-up costs. In his post, Mr. Kosako's role was to advise the prime minister on radiation safety.



STR?Agence France-Presse/Getty Images
Toshiso Kosako, who resigned in April as a senior nuclear adviser to Prime Minister Naoto Kan, says the government is still failing at radiation protection.

And while there have been scattered reports of food contamination—of tea leaves and spinach, for example—Mr. Kosako predicted there will be broader discoveries later this year, especially as rice, Japan's staple, is harvested.

"Come the harvest season in the fall, there will be a chaos," Mr. Kosako said. "Among the rice harvested, there will certainly be some radiation contamination—though I don't know at what levels—setting off a scandal. If people stop buying rice from Tohoku … we'll have a tricky problem."

Mr. Kosako also said that the way the government has handled the Fukushima Daiichi situation since the March 11 tsunami crippled the reactors has exposed basic flaws in Japanese policy making.

"The government's decision-making mechanism is opaque," he said. "It's never clear what reasons are driving what decisions. This doesn't look like a democratic society. Japan is increasingly looking like a developing nation in East Asia."

Specifically, Mr. Kosako said the government set a relatively high ceiling for acceptable radiation in school yards, so that only 17 schools exceeded that limit. If the government had set the lower ceiling he had advocated, thousands of schools would have required a full cleanup. With Mr. Kan's ruling party struggling to gain parliamentary approval for a special budget, the costlier option didn't get traction, he said.

"When taking these steps, the only concern for the current government is prolonging its own life," Mr. Kosako said.

Mr. Kan's office referred questions about Mr. Kosako's remarks to a cabinet office official, who declined to be identified. The official said the government is making "utmost efforts" to improve radiation monitoring in the sea and working closely with fishermen and others.

"Particularly close attention is paid to the safety of rice as Japan's staple food," the official said, adding the government would suspend the shipment of crops if radiation exceeding a set standard is detected. The government has banned the planting of rice in certain areas.

As for schools, the official said the government was working to lower the ceiling for acceptable radiation, and "is also considering additional steps. "

Mr. Kosako, a 61-year-old Tokyo University professor who has served on a number government and industrial panels, quit Mr. Kan's newly appointed group of nuclear experts on April 30, fueling concerns about the government's handling of the accident.

Saying that many of recommendations from himself and the group were ignored by Mr. Kan, the scientist described the government's ceiling on schoolyard radiation levels as "unacceptable." The image of him wiping tears at a news conference on the day of his resignation, as he said he wouldn't subject his own children to such an environment, was widely broadcast.

Having spent two months focusing on teaching radiation-safety courses at his university, Mr. Kosako said he is ready to begin speaking his mind again, starting with foreign audiences outside of the Japanese controversies. Over the coming weeks, he is scheduled to give speeches in the U.S. and in Taiwan.

He said he is especially concerned with contamination of the ocean by the large amounts radioactive material from the damaged Fukushima Daiichi reactors dumped into surrounding waters. The government has released only sketchy information about what has drained into the sea as a result of efforts to cool the smoldering reactors. Mr. Kosako has urged more seawater monitoring, more projections of the spread of polluted water and steps to deal with the contamination of different types of seafood, from seaweed to shellfish to fish.

"I've been telling them to hurry up and do it, but they haven't," he said.

As he resigned, Mr. Kosako submitted to government officials a thick booklet that contained all the official recommendations by him and his group he had offered during his six-week tenure. A copy of the booklet was reviewed by The Wall Street Journal through an independent source. Mr. Kosako authenticated the material.

From the time of his appointment on March 16, Mr. Kosako and some of his colleagues offered recommendations touching on a broad range of topics, according to the booklet. It was weeks before the public learned of some of them, such as a March 17 call for using the government's Speedi radiation-monitoring system to project residents' exposure levels using the "worst-case scenario based on a practical setting."

On March 18, they urged the government's Nuclear Safety Commission to re-examine the adequacy of the government's initial evacuation zones, based on such simulations by Speedi.

The Speedi data weren't released to the public until March 23, and the evacuation zones weren't adjusted by the government until April 11. Critics inside and outside the government say the delay in the adjustment may have subjected thousands of Fukushima residents to high levels of radiation exposure.

Write to Yuka Hayashi at yuka.hayashi@wsj.com

Agence France-Presse/Getty Images
Toshiso Kosako, who resigned in April as a senior nuclear adviser to Prime Minister Naoto Kan, says the government is still failing at radiation protection.