“The leaders have not yet proposed fundamental solutions such as euro bond issuance or the European Central Bank’s intervention.”-Kwon Hyouk-se, Financial Supervisory Service, South Korea
“The EU summit was widely seen as a new step in the right direction, but the summit deal has many obvious flaws and lacks operational details in many areas. It looks more like a comprehensive fix to the next crisis, rather than a final resolution to the current one.”-Luca Jellinek, Credit Agricole, France
“Oh what a tangled web we weave,
When first we practise to deceive!”-Walter Scott, Marmion, Canto vi. Stanza 17
I just read several reports. One said the European Central Bank (ECB) wants to buy up the sovereign debts of European countries that are in financial trouble. But the ECB says it needs about U.S.$150 billion to do it (notice they don’t have the cash on hand).
In another report the European Union said it will loan about $266 billion…to the U.S. based International Monetary Fund (not to their own ECB). The purpose of the loan to the IMF is so the IMF can turn around and loan it back to European banks!
You must realize that the IMF is broke, just last week the President of the IMF came away from South America with a huge loan. It was precedent setting, because for the first time in South America’s history they loaned money to the IMF, instead of the other way ’round. So what did the IMF do with that money?
And why can’t the European Union loan the $266 billion directly to it’s member banks? Is this just another accounting shell game?
The 1% elitist spiders have trapped themselves in their own web. There’s no more flies to catch, the spiders are starving and they’re turning on each other! It’s called World War 3!
Despite what British officials, and U.S. and U.K. media have been saying, more and more governments are confirming that Iran did indeed officially apologize for Iranian university students attacking the British embassy in Iran.
Germany is the latest: Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle says Iranian Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi “…was deeply sorry for what has happened…” and vowed “…to do everything to prevent such an incident from happening again.”
This follows Spanish officials reporting the same thing.
“We do not accept NATO apology. NATO was not chasing militants.”-Major General Athar Abbas, Pakistani army
Pakistan continues to move away from the United States, after a deadly U.S. led NATO/ISAF attack on Pakistani troops. They are now boycotting the December 5 Bonn Conference on Afghanistan’s security.
Foreign Ministers from at least 90 countries (including Hillary Clinton) are expected to attend the Bonn Conference, to discuss key issues like the withdrawal of foreign forces from Afghanistan, and negotiations with the majority political party, and militant group, the Taliban.
Pakaistani army officials say the NATO/ISAF claim that they were shooting at militants is false because the area they attacked was 200 to 300 meters (about 984 feet) inside Pakistani territory, and, had already been cleared of militant activity. Earlier reports from Pakistan claimed the attack took place a mile and a half inside Pakistani territory.
On November 18 Suzuki said their marriage with Germany’s Volkswagen was over, and they wanted their dowry back.
Suzuki wants VW to sell back the 19.9% stake they have in the Japanese car maker. VW says no way. Now the case has gone to arbitration in a London, England, court. The arbitration could take two years!
“We got our hands on it and found it is doing much more than it is legally allowed to do.”– Frank Rieger, Chaos Computer Club
The German government allows cell phone conversations to be spied on, but hackers discovered that the software used actually violates the government’s own legal limits.
It’s called Bundestrojan. Germany’s Federal Constitutional Court said it was legal as long as it screened only internet telephone calls. But, Bavarian police, and several other German states, are logging keystrokes, activating cameras, monitoring internet users’ activities and sending data to government officials. All illegal.
Hackers also found out the United States is involved: “To avoid revealing the location of the command and control server, all data are redirected through a rented dedicated server in a data center in the U.S.”–Chaos Computer Club
A Finnish tech company, in Helsinki, also found that the Bundestrojan is intercepting data entered into web browser Firefox, as well as the instant messaging programs MSN and ICQ.
Antivirus vendor, Kaspersky Lab in Germany, investigated Bundestrojan’s capabilities: “Amongst the new things we found in there are two rather interesting ones: Firstly, this version is not only capable of running on 32 bit systems; it also includes support for 64 bit versions of Windows. Secondly, the list of target processes to monitor is longer than the one mentioned in the CCC report. The number of applications infected by the various components is 15 in total.”– Tillmann Werner, Kaspersky Lab
Targeted applications includes Internet Explorer, Firefox and Opera, programs with VoIP and data encryption functionality, including ICQ, MSN Messenger, Yahoo Messenger, Skype, Low-Rate VoIP, CounterPath X-Lite and Paltalk.
German officials are calling for an investigation. Hackers say this is a result of society putting security ahead of freedom: “Unfortunately, for too long the (government) has been guided by demands for technical surveillance, not by values like freedom or the question of how to protect our values in a digital world.”–Chaos Computer Club
There’s been a lot of news about a possible break up of the merger between German VolksWagen and Japanese Suzuki. Last week Suzuki demanded an end to the deal, but VW officials say there’s no way they’re gonna sell their stake in Suzuki.
Now, Der Spiegel says not only is VW not gonna sell it’s Suzuki stocks, but it’s looking like they’re going for a hostile takeover!
Currently VW holds 19.9% stake in Suzuki, and under current contract could acquire a majority holding. But, under the current contact the same could be true for Suzuki taking over VW.
Such takeovers would require the consent of whoever is being taken over. Right now Suzuki wants out. Also, in the recent past VW officials say it’s become obvious that something was lost in translation concerning the partnership.
Originally VW officials thought Suzuki wanted German hybrid technology. VW thought it was a good opportunity to get into the booming Indian car market, because Suzuki already had a strong presence in India. Apparently that’s not what Suzuki had in mind.
September 18, several thousand of Germans hit the streets of Berlin, protesting the lowering of wages: “Higher wages lead to more purchasing power. This would strengthen the economy. The government’s policies are counterproductive.”-German protestor
Germany is supposed to be doing well economically, but tell that to the average German worker: “My husband was a coal miner for 38 years. Now he is at home and seriously ill, but of his pension there is hardly anything left after paying the rent, electricity, water and the medicine he needs.”-German protestor
At least one third of Germans are threatened by old-age poverty as unemployment, part-time or mini-jobs in a growing low-wage sector will lead to lower pensions in the future. This is a trend that’s happening all around the world.
There’s even a new political party gaining strength in Germany; the Pirate Party: “This is a situation in all countries. The gap between rich and poor becomes greater and otherwise we are in a critical situation of finance and economic system in the world. Therefore we need new ideas to solve these problems.”– Alexander Spiess, Pirate Party candidate
A report out of China says that home juicing machines, and soybean milking machines, are being manufactured with lubricants that are known to cause cancer.
Inspectors working for the Germany company Fuchs Petrolub, discovered the malpractice: “Manufacturers of soybean milk machines, including Joyoung and Midea, are well aware that the lubricant for production is for industrial use. It is only during product examinations from outside agencies that they purchase lubricant for food.”
Products intended for food production should use food grade lubricants, but it was revealed that the home juicing machines were put together using standard industrial grade lubricants.
However, there is apparently no law in China requiring the use of food grade lubricants for food production machines. Staff with Fuchs Petrolub say the Chinese companies use industrial grade lubricants, for food machines, because they’re cheaper.
“If the U.S. or the EU are proudly focusing on internet freedom, while security and other ICT products made in the West are used to repress the same citizens we are trying to protect, this is clearly neither credible nor effective.”-Marietje Schaake, EU Member of Parliament from Netherlands
In Bahrain, where the U.S. supported government has been cracking down on peaceful protestors, and detaining and torturing them, human rights groups have revealed that Bahraini officials are tracking people’s activities through their cell phones.
Bahrain is using technology developed by Nokia Siemens. Bahraini activist Abdul Ghani Al Khanjar said while he was being tortured his own cell phone conversations were being read back to him. He was detained for seven months.
This is not the first time the company has been accused of enabling spying and torture. Last year, two Iranians attempted to sued Nokia Siemens in U.S. Federal court. They alleged that the surveillance technology helped Iranian security forces to arrest and torture them.
Nokia Siemens Networks is a joint venture between the Finnish Nokia and the German Siemens.