Week # 111 - Dated 14-20 March 2010
WESTERN EUROPE
Britain's Labour government was boosted on Wednesday by news that unemployment fell in February at the fastest pace in over 12 years, in a fresh sign of recovery ahead of expected May elections.
Greek President Karolos Papoulias was sworn-in on March 12th for a second term during an inauguration ceremony in parliament.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel has said that there needs to be a mechanism to expel countries from the eurozone if they persistently break its financial rules. She reiterated that Germany is not planning to give "rash" financial support to Greece. Meanwhile in a recent meeting of Euro group finance ministers decided to withhold financial assistance for Greece at present. However mechanisms to aid short term assistance are still being considered.
In Greece, taxi drivers and gas station owners staged a 24-hour strike last week against planned reforms that will oblige them to issue VAT receipts to customers. New jobless figures show the unemployment rate in the fourth quarter of 2009 climbed to 10.3%, compared to 7.9% a year earlier.
Dublin Archbishop Diarmuid Martin declared last week that his Catholic colleagues in Ireland must tell "the entire truth" about their decades of covering up child abuse in the priesthood. Meanwhile Angela Merkel has the sex abuse scandals in Germany, which Pope Benedict XVI has failed to address hence far, a major challenge.
A major reorganization of allied forces in Afghanistan is expected to centralize both American and other foreign troops under the direct command of Gen. Stanley McChrystal, the senior U.S. and NATO commander.
CENTRAL AND EASTERN EUROPE
According to the Bulgarian parliamentary speaker the possible deployment of elements of the US-missile defence shield has not yet been discussed by parliament or by the government in Sofia. Meanwhile Bulgarian Parliament unanimously adopted a bill last week to ban Genetically Modified Organism (GMO) cultivation for scientific and commercial reasons.
Serbia President Boris Tadic has said that Serbia would not object to the extradition of former Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH) presidency member Ejup Ganic to Sarajevo, stressing the most important thing is for Ganic to stand trial.
According to APP, a Polish M-28 aircraft, which took off from Kos island of Greece, violated Turkish air space earlier this month. The incident has further strained relations between the two countries.
Polish opposition accused Prime Minister Donald Tusk’s team in parliament of protracting Poland's dependence on Russian gas by sealing a long term contract with Russia's gas distributor GAZPROM.
The European Commission on 18 March 2010 sent reasoned opinions, the final stage before a case is referred to the European Court of Justice, to Austria, Belgium and Poland after they failed to communicate National Legislation that aims to implement EU rules against gender discrimination in employment. Reasoned opinion have also been sent to the Czech Republic and Greece as a result of the countries failing to reschedule EU legislation setting procedures for safety checks for EU and third country aircraft using their airports.
The president of Slovakia has vetoed a controversial patriotism law passed recently by parliament. The law among other things would have required schools to play the Slovak national anthem every Monday.
Pre-election rallies in Hungry last week reflected a marked shift to the right after eight years of socialist government. A crowd of tens of thousands greeted the opposition leader of the centre-right party FIDESZ.
Polish-Belarusian consultations on the situation of the Union of Poles in Belarus begin last week, after accusations that Lukashenko’s regime has persecuted the minority organization. The EU has already warned Belarus against harassment of the Union of Poles or risk losing financial aid packages.
In the backdrop of an IMF mission arriving in Ukraine the country’s Communist Party has slammed government plans to accept a new loan from the US-dominated International Monetary Fund, the World Trade Organization and the World Bank.
Latvia's right-wing People's Party pulled out from the ruling coalition as protest on unpopular tax rises and drastic cuts in public welfare sector. It recalled its five ministers from the government and moved into the parliamentary opposition after Prime Minister Valdis Dombrovskis refused to back the party's economic-rescue plan.
U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton met with Prime Minister Vladimir
Putin last week and pledged to enhance cooperation with Russia in trade and sort out strategies for the Russian entry to WTO. Also at the invitation of Russian PM, Chinese Vice President Xi Jinping arrived in Russia last week for a five-day official visit. Russia is the first leg of Xi's four-nation Europe tour, which will also take him to Belarus, Finland and Sweden.
According to statistics Poland's consumer inflation was lower than expected in February, strengthening the case for keeping interest rates unchanged. Meanwhile according to officials the Czech Republic may be able to adopt the euro in 2015, provided it cuts its Budget deficit by EU standards.
Ratings agency Moody's has played down the scope of political tensions in Latvia, saying they had no implication for credit quality. Moody's is the only ratings agency to have kept Latvia at an investment grade, albeit it’s lowest level of Baa3.
A Polish court ruled last week that allegations in the 2009 biography of former President “Lech Walesa: The Idea and History" by Pawel Zyzak alleging that Walesa served as a communist informant were slanderous.
According to a report from human rights watchdogs Amnesty international and the Omega Research Foundation, several EU countries including Spain, Germany, Hungary and the Czech Republic buy and sell equipment used in torture despite a 2006 EU law against the trade.
Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovich has proposed to hold the joint military parade of the Ukrainian Navy and Russia’s Black Sea Fleet in Sevastopol on May 9 to celebrate the 65th anniversary of V-Day.
RUSSIA
Thousands of Russians took to the streets in rallies across the country in a protest about falling living standards, unemployment, local issues and government policies. “A Day of Anger” was organized by a coalition of opposition groups: the Communist Party, the Solidarity movement and human rights groups.
Amidst agitation parliamentary election was held last week in eight territories of the Russian Federation; all the four parties represented in the State Duma - United Russia, KPRF, LDPR and Just Russian parties, will have their representatives in these legislatures. In the vote Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin's party easily won control of all eight regional parliaments, but its support was down significantly in seven compared with 2007 parliamentary elections. Russian opposition parties expressed satisfaction with the results of Sunday's regional legislative elections as seen a popularity test for the pro-Kremlin United Russia party.
Meanwhile the Prime Minister won support on the domestic turf to build a dozen ultrasafe nuclear reactors in India, part of more than $10 billion in deals in energy, arms, telecoms and other cooperation signed during his visit last week.
According to Valery Konovalyuk, who heads the Ukrainian parliament’s commission for investigating illegal weapon supplies Russia has terminated a number of armament projects with Ukraine in the wake of supplies of Ukrainian weapons to Georgia.
Last week Medvedev, Obama agreed to discuss concrete dates for a new strategic arms reduction treaty START signing.
Russia has condemned as "irresponsible and immoral" a Georgian TV hoax about a Russian invasion. Panic was sparked in Georgia after the Imedi TV station broadcast news that Russian tanks had invaded the capital and the country's president was dead.
A total of $411 million flowed into Russian funds over the week ending March 11, the highest level since October, far outstripping investment flows into Russia's BRIC peers, according to fund tracker EPFR Global. Meanwhile Alexandra Wrage, whose non-profit organization TRACE International advises firms on how to avoid bribery, told Reuters the "rampant endemic" corruption in Russia was much worse than in other big emerging economies.
The Russian Foreign Ministry indignantly dismissed U.S. criticism of Russia's human rights record last week, saying the United States was guilty of its own abuses from Afghanistan to "the streets of America."
At least 69 people have been arrested in a crackdown on the Russian mafia in several European countries.
According to a Federal Security Service spokesman 20 members of the radical Islamic organization Tablighi Jamaat have been arrested in Chita, Siberia. Many countries, including Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Kyrgyzstan have already banned the movement, which was outlawed in Russia in 2009, after the Supreme Court ruled that the organization sought to destroy the territorial integrity of the Russian Federation, discriminated against Russian citizens, and gave support to international terrorist organizations.
According to Reuters report, the jobless rate in Russia fell by nearly 400,000 last month, but the economy contracted because (1) the investment continued to fall and (2) growth in retail sales and disposable incomes was very slow.
Meanwhile President Dmitry Medvedev announced last week that Russia would build a high-tech hub at Skolkovo, near Moscow to encourage modernization of the economy and reduce its dependence on oil and gas. The centre will be designed to develop five priority sectors — energy, IT, telecommunications, bio-medical and atomic technologies.
US/CANADA
Last week the Senate Homeland Security subcommittee heard testimony from top federal officials about growing corruption of U.S. law enforcement along the U.S/Mexican border.
US Companies that hire unemployed workers are to get a temporary payroll tax holiday under a bill that won final congressional approval last week. Optimistic estimates predict the tax break could generate perhaps 250,000 jobs through the end of the year, but that would be just a tiny fraction of
the 8.4 million jobs lost since the start of the recession.
According to a top White House official Israel's announcement of plans to build 1,600 settler homes in east Jerusalem was not only an "insult" to the United States but "destructive" of the Middle East peace process. Meanwhile Secretary of State Hillary Clinton while saying that Israel must prove it is committed to the peace process brushed aside suggestions that relations with Israel are in crisis.
LATIN AMERICA
Brazil's President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva was in the Middle East last week, seeking to bring a fresh outlook to the peace process on a trip to Israel, the Palestinian territories and Jordan.
Meanwhile Israel's foreign minister confirmed last week that he boycotted meetings with the visiting Brazilian president; Lieberman said he was upset at Silva's decision not to visit late Zionist leader Theodor Herzl's grave, especially while agreeing to lay a wreath at the tomb of late Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat.
According to a Human Rights Commission’s report since deployment of Mexico’s troops combating drug trafficking since December 2006, there has been a dramatic increase in complaints of military abuse. From 2007 to the end of 2009, Mexico's National Human Rights Commission received 3,388 complaints of human rights violations by the military. Of these, it has already concluded that in at least 38 cases the military was in fact responsible for abuses.
Meanwhile three people with ties to the American consulate were killed in a drug-plagued Mexican city. President Barack Obama expressed outrage over the killings, and Mexican President Felipe Calderon promised a swift investigation. The number of U.S. citizens killed in Mexico has more than doubled to 78 in 2009 from 37 in 2007, according to the U.S. State Department's annual count.
Spanish Deputy Prime Minister María Teresa Fernández de la Vega said last week that Spain has the support of Venezuela in the fight against the armed Basque separatist group ETA, as it occurs with other countries like France or Portugal.
José Mujica, the president of Uruguay, has said that he wants to help improve relations between Venezuela and Colombia and is willing to "talk to everybody."
Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko offered to help Venezuela strengthen its military, while saying last week that President Hugo Chavez's government should not have to worry about foreign threats.
The Venezuelan government plans to increase its fuel consumption by a third in 2010 to fuel thermoelectric plants with which President Hugo Chávez hopes to overcome the energy crisis. §
Britain's Labour government was boosted on Wednesday by news that unemployment fell in February at the fastest pace in over 12 years, in a fresh sign of recovery ahead of expected May elections.
Greek President Karolos Papoulias was sworn-in on March 12th for a second term during an inauguration ceremony in parliament.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel has said that there needs to be a mechanism to expel countries from the eurozone if they persistently break its financial rules. She reiterated that Germany is not planning to give "rash" financial support to Greece. Meanwhile in a recent meeting of Euro group finance ministers decided to withhold financial assistance for Greece at present. However mechanisms to aid short term assistance are still being considered.
In Greece, taxi drivers and gas station owners staged a 24-hour strike last week against planned reforms that will oblige them to issue VAT receipts to customers. New jobless figures show the unemployment rate in the fourth quarter of 2009 climbed to 10.3%, compared to 7.9% a year earlier.
Dublin Archbishop Diarmuid Martin declared last week that his Catholic colleagues in Ireland must tell "the entire truth" about their decades of covering up child abuse in the priesthood. Meanwhile Angela Merkel has the sex abuse scandals in Germany, which Pope Benedict XVI has failed to address hence far, a major challenge.
A major reorganization of allied forces in Afghanistan is expected to centralize both American and other foreign troops under the direct command of Gen. Stanley McChrystal, the senior U.S. and NATO commander.
CENTRAL AND EASTERN EUROPE
According to the Bulgarian parliamentary speaker the possible deployment of elements of the US-missile defence shield has not yet been discussed by parliament or by the government in Sofia. Meanwhile Bulgarian Parliament unanimously adopted a bill last week to ban Genetically Modified Organism (GMO) cultivation for scientific and commercial reasons.
Serbia President Boris Tadic has said that Serbia would not object to the extradition of former Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH) presidency member Ejup Ganic to Sarajevo, stressing the most important thing is for Ganic to stand trial.
According to APP, a Polish M-28 aircraft, which took off from Kos island of Greece, violated Turkish air space earlier this month. The incident has further strained relations between the two countries.
Polish opposition accused Prime Minister Donald Tusk’s team in parliament of protracting Poland's dependence on Russian gas by sealing a long term contract with Russia's gas distributor GAZPROM.
The European Commission on 18 March 2010 sent reasoned opinions, the final stage before a case is referred to the European Court of Justice, to Austria, Belgium and Poland after they failed to communicate National Legislation that aims to implement EU rules against gender discrimination in employment. Reasoned opinion have also been sent to the Czech Republic and Greece as a result of the countries failing to reschedule EU legislation setting procedures for safety checks for EU and third country aircraft using their airports.
The president of Slovakia has vetoed a controversial patriotism law passed recently by parliament. The law among other things would have required schools to play the Slovak national anthem every Monday.
Pre-election rallies in Hungry last week reflected a marked shift to the right after eight years of socialist government. A crowd of tens of thousands greeted the opposition leader of the centre-right party FIDESZ.
Polish-Belarusian consultations on the situation of the Union of Poles in Belarus begin last week, after accusations that Lukashenko’s regime has persecuted the minority organization. The EU has already warned Belarus against harassment of the Union of Poles or risk losing financial aid packages.
In the backdrop of an IMF mission arriving in Ukraine the country’s Communist Party has slammed government plans to accept a new loan from the US-dominated International Monetary Fund, the World Trade Organization and the World Bank.
Latvia's right-wing People's Party pulled out from the ruling coalition as protest on unpopular tax rises and drastic cuts in public welfare sector. It recalled its five ministers from the government and moved into the parliamentary opposition after Prime Minister Valdis Dombrovskis refused to back the party's economic-rescue plan.
U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton met with Prime Minister Vladimir
Putin last week and pledged to enhance cooperation with Russia in trade and sort out strategies for the Russian entry to WTO. Also at the invitation of Russian PM, Chinese Vice President Xi Jinping arrived in Russia last week for a five-day official visit. Russia is the first leg of Xi's four-nation Europe tour, which will also take him to Belarus, Finland and Sweden.According to statistics Poland's consumer inflation was lower than expected in February, strengthening the case for keeping interest rates unchanged. Meanwhile according to officials the Czech Republic may be able to adopt the euro in 2015, provided it cuts its Budget deficit by EU standards.
Ratings agency Moody's has played down the scope of political tensions in Latvia, saying they had no implication for credit quality. Moody's is the only ratings agency to have kept Latvia at an investment grade, albeit it’s lowest level of Baa3.
A Polish court ruled last week that allegations in the 2009 biography of former President “Lech Walesa: The Idea and History" by Pawel Zyzak alleging that Walesa served as a communist informant were slanderous.
According to a report from human rights watchdogs Amnesty international and the Omega Research Foundation, several EU countries including Spain, Germany, Hungary and the Czech Republic buy and sell equipment used in torture despite a 2006 EU law against the trade.
Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovich has proposed to hold the joint military parade of the Ukrainian Navy and Russia’s Black Sea Fleet in Sevastopol on May 9 to celebrate the 65th anniversary of V-Day.
RUSSIA
Thousands of Russians took to the streets in rallies across the country in a protest about falling living standards, unemployment, local issues and government policies. “A Day of Anger” was organized by a coalition of opposition groups: the Communist Party, the Solidarity movement and human rights groups.
Amidst agitation parliamentary election was held last week in eight territories of the Russian Federation; all the four parties represented in the State Duma - United Russia, KPRF, LDPR and Just Russian parties, will have their representatives in these legislatures. In the vote Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin's party easily won control of all eight regional parliaments, but its support was down significantly in seven compared with 2007 parliamentary elections. Russian opposition parties expressed satisfaction with the results of Sunday's regional legislative elections as seen a popularity test for the pro-Kremlin United Russia party.
Meanwhile the Prime Minister won support on the domestic turf to build a dozen ultrasafe nuclear reactors in India, part of more than $10 billion in deals in energy, arms, telecoms and other cooperation signed during his visit last week.
According to Valery Konovalyuk, who heads the Ukrainian parliament’s commission for investigating illegal weapon supplies Russia has terminated a number of armament projects with Ukraine in the wake of supplies of Ukrainian weapons to Georgia.
Last week Medvedev, Obama agreed to discuss concrete dates for a new strategic arms reduction treaty START signing.
Russia has condemned as "irresponsible and immoral" a Georgian TV hoax about a Russian invasion. Panic was sparked in Georgia after the Imedi TV station broadcast news that Russian tanks had invaded the capital and the country's president was dead.
A total of $411 million flowed into Russian funds over the week ending March 11, the highest level since October, far outstripping investment flows into Russia's BRIC peers, according to fund tracker EPFR Global. Meanwhile Alexandra Wrage, whose non-profit organization TRACE International advises firms on how to avoid bribery, told Reuters the "rampant endemic" corruption in Russia was much worse than in other big emerging economies.
The Russian Foreign Ministry indignantly dismissed U.S. criticism of Russia's human rights record last week, saying the United States was guilty of its own abuses from Afghanistan to "the streets of America."
At least 69 people have been arrested in a crackdown on the Russian mafia in several European countries.
According to a Federal Security Service spokesman 20 members of the radical Islamic organization Tablighi Jamaat have been arrested in Chita, Siberia. Many countries, including Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Kyrgyzstan have already banned the movement, which was outlawed in Russia in 2009, after the Supreme Court ruled that the organization sought to destroy the territorial integrity of the Russian Federation, discriminated against Russian citizens, and gave support to international terrorist organizations.
According to Reuters report, the jobless rate in Russia fell by nearly 400,000 last month, but the economy contracted because (1) the investment continued to fall and (2) growth in retail sales and disposable incomes was very slow.
Meanwhile President Dmitry Medvedev announced last week that Russia would build a high-tech hub at Skolkovo, near Moscow to encourage modernization of the economy and reduce its dependence on oil and gas. The centre will be designed to develop five priority sectors — energy, IT, telecommunications, bio-medical and atomic technologies.
US/CANADA
Last week the Senate Homeland Security subcommittee heard testimony from top federal officials about growing corruption of U.S. law enforcement along the U.S/Mexican border.
US Companies that hire unemployed workers are to get a temporary payroll tax holiday under a bill that won final congressional approval last week. Optimistic estimates predict the tax break could generate perhaps 250,000 jobs through the end of the year, but that would be just a tiny fraction of
the 8.4 million jobs lost since the start of the recession.According to a top White House official Israel's announcement of plans to build 1,600 settler homes in east Jerusalem was not only an "insult" to the United States but "destructive" of the Middle East peace process. Meanwhile Secretary of State Hillary Clinton while saying that Israel must prove it is committed to the peace process brushed aside suggestions that relations with Israel are in crisis.
LATIN AMERICA
Brazil's President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva was in the Middle East last week, seeking to bring a fresh outlook to the peace process on a trip to Israel, the Palestinian territories and Jordan.
Meanwhile Israel's foreign minister confirmed last week that he boycotted meetings with the visiting Brazilian president; Lieberman said he was upset at Silva's decision not to visit late Zionist leader Theodor Herzl's grave, especially while agreeing to lay a wreath at the tomb of late Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat.
According to a Human Rights Commission’s report since deployment of Mexico’s troops combating drug trafficking since December 2006, there has been a dramatic increase in complaints of military abuse. From 2007 to the end of 2009, Mexico's National Human Rights Commission received 3,388 complaints of human rights violations by the military. Of these, it has already concluded that in at least 38 cases the military was in fact responsible for abuses.
Meanwhile three people with ties to the American consulate were killed in a drug-plagued Mexican city. President Barack Obama expressed outrage over the killings, and Mexican President Felipe Calderon promised a swift investigation. The number of U.S. citizens killed in Mexico has more than doubled to 78 in 2009 from 37 in 2007, according to the U.S. State Department's annual count.
Spanish Deputy Prime Minister María Teresa Fernández de la Vega said last week that Spain has the support of Venezuela in the fight against the armed Basque separatist group ETA, as it occurs with other countries like France or Portugal.
José Mujica, the president of Uruguay, has said that he wants to help improve relations between Venezuela and Colombia and is willing to "talk to everybody."
Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko offered to help Venezuela strengthen its military, while saying last week that President Hugo Chavez's government should not have to worry about foreign threats.
The Venezuelan government plans to increase its fuel consumption by a third in 2010 to fuel thermoelectric plants with which President Hugo Chávez hopes to overcome the energy crisis. §
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Business and Politics in the Muslim World (BPM)refers to the project entitled, "Globalized Business and Politics: A View from the Muslim World.' The blog development project has been undertaken and jointly developed by the Gilani Research Foundation and BPM as a free resource and social discussion tool.
Please Preview your comments before posting.
Business and Politics in the Muslim World (BPM)refers to the project entitled, "Globalized Business and Politics: A View from the Muslim World.' The blog development project has been undertaken and jointly developed by the Gilani Research Foundation and BPM as a free resource and social discussion tool.
Please Preview your comments before posting.
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