This morning's key headlines from
GenerationalDynamics.com
- Angela Merkel praises Canada for not 'living on borrowed money'
- Greece postpones request for extension of austerity requirements
- Spain's debt spiral accelerates at high speed
- In ironic twist, Assad's planes kill ally's kidnap victims
Angela Merkel praises Canada for not 'living on borrowed money'
German Chancellor Angela Merkel, on a trip to Ottawa to meet with
Canada's Prime Minister Stephen Harper, said that Germany intends to
do "everything we can to maintain" the euro. She renewed her call for
fiscal discipline by praising Canada for not "living on borrowed
money," saying it should serve as a model for Europe. Almost
everyone in Europe is on vacation right now, but the next major event
on the euro timeline is expected to occur on September 12, when
Germany's Verfassungsgericht (Federal Constitutional Court) will issue
a verdict on whether the euro zone rescue plan for Spain and other
countries is legal under European treaties and the German
constitution. AP and Bloomberg
Greece postpones request for extension of austerity requirements
News reports have been swirling with rumors that Greece's prime
minister Antonis Samaras plans to ask for a two-year extension on
meeting austerity requires imposed by the EU and the IMF in return for
its third bailout package. However, no sooner did the swirling start,
but it became clear that European leaders are very hostile to the idea
of giving Greece any more time, especially since the extension would
have to be funded by an additional 20 billion euros in bailout funds.
Austria's foreign minister, for example, said Thursday that "We need
to create ways to be able to eject someone from the eurozone,"
referring to Greece. And so Samaras has decided to postpone his
extension request until an EU leaders' summit scheduled for October
8-9.
Kathimerini
Spain's debt spiral accelerates at high speed
ECB lending to Spain's financial institutions (FTA)
It doesn’t come as much of a surprise that the Spanish financial
sector is having to increasingly rely on loans from the European
Central Bank (ECB). However, analysts are surprised that the
borrowing is accelerating very rapidly.
FT Alphaville
In ironic twist, Assad's planes kill ally's kidnap victims
In the welter of conflicting stories about various types of atrocities
in Syria, readers may recall that in May, Syrian opposition fighters
kidnapped a busload of Shia Lebanese citizens as they traveled back to
Lebanon from a religious pilgrimage to Iran. (From June:
Hezbollah leader Nasrallah's defiant threat to Syrian kidnappers backfires) All but 11 of the kidnap victims
were freed in May, but the fate of the 11 remaining has been in
question. Iran, of course, is a close ally of Syria's leader Bashar
al-Assad, whose army launched a bloody bombing assault on residential
neighborhoods of Azaz, as we
reported yesterday. Now, Abu Ibrahim, head of a Syrian opposition
militia, says that the 11 were being held in Azaz, and that they were
the victims of al-Assad's bombs:
"Four Lebanese were killed. The other seven are in
critical condition as a result of the severe bombardment. [Syrian
President’s] Bashar Assad’s warplanes bombarded the buildings and
medical centers in Azaz."
If the claims are true, it would be ironic if al-Assads warplanes
killed his own Shia allies, when all he really wanted to do was
exterminate a few Sunni women and children.
Daily Star (Beirut)
Permanent web link to this article
Receive daily World View columns by e-mail