Johannes Stern - Millions Demand Downfall Of US-Backed Egyptian Junta

By Johannes Stern

26 November, 2011
WSWS.org

http://countercurrents.org/stern261111.htm

On Friday millions of workers and youth protested against military rule in Egypt and demanded the downfall of the US-backed Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF) junta. In Cairo hundreds of thousands of protesters gathered on Tahrir Square. By the early afternoon, the square was packed with protesters chanting, “The people demand the removal of the field marshal,” “We will not go, he should go” and “Down, down with military rule.”

Throughout the day, mass marches kicked off from different locations in the capital, all converging in Tahrir Square. Thousands of marchers tore down the banners and posters of parliamentary candidates on their way to Tahrir, protesting the decision to hold parliamentary elections under the thumb of the SCAF junta, and denouncing the political establishment as a whole.

In major cities all over Egypt, hundreds of thousands took to the streets. In Alexandria tens of thousands of protesters gathered in front of Al-Qaed Ibrahim Mosque shouting against military rule and marching towards the Northern Military Zone near Sidi Gaber. Thousands of protesters gathered on Arbaeen Square in Suez. There were demonstrations in Tanta, Mahalla al Kubra, Sohag, Ismailiya, Damanhour, in the Upper Egyptian cities of Luxor, Minya and Assiut, and on the Sinai.

Friday’s mass demonstrations were the seventh day of continuous mass protests against the junta. Protests erupted last Saturday after the notorious Amn Al Markazi (Central Security Forces) violently attacked a small sit-in on Tahrir Square. Thousands of workers and youth poured into the streets to defend the sit-in against Mubarak’s generals, who have continued the same anti-social and anti-democratic politics as the ousted dictator.

The junta has launched a brutal crackdown against protesters since Saturday, killing at least 38 and wounding several thousand. Military and Central Security Forces have shot rubber bullets, birdshots and tear gas canisters at protesters. The latest autopsy records indicate that at least 22 protesters were shot with live ammunition. There is increasing evidence that the Egyptian military is also using armored vehicles against peaceful protesters. A Youtube video shows tanks chasing protesters through the streets of Ismailiya, an industrial city on the west bank of the Suez Canal.

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Janet Lawrence - Europe's Austerity to Bring Cold, Bleak Winter

Published on Sunday, November 27, 2011 by Reuters

http://www.reuters.com/

by Janet Lawrence

LONDON - While workers protest against austerity measures on the streets, cash-strapped Europeans are feeling the pain at home, struggling to pay for heating as winter approaches, reviving soup kitchens for the poorest and getting rid of costly pets.

The debt crisis now ravaging the euro zone has seen governments cut spending, including to welfare programs, and raise taxes. Unemployment is rising and many Europeans are planning for a bleaker future.

Romanian mayor Florin Cazacu staged a six-day hunger strike last week over cuts to heating subsidies which meant his town of Brad could not afford fuel oil and 10,000 of its residents, public institutions and hospital faced a bitter winter.

"My hunger strike was an extreme solution, a mayor's cry for help for the community," Cazacu told Reuters by phone on Sunday.

He called off the strike on Saturday after central government agree to pay 1 million lei ($304,000), but said that would only cover 15-20 days of heating for the town where temperatures can fall as low as minus-30 degrees Celsius.

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Mike Whitney - The Eurozone Past the Point of No Return

NOVEMBER 23, 2011

HTTP://WWW.COUNTERPUNCH.ORG/2011/11/23/PAST-THE-POINT-OF-NO-RETURN/

by MIKE WHITNEY

“Eurozone banks’ demand for European Central Bank funding surged to a two-year high on Tuesday, as fast spreading sovereign debt worries left lending markets virtually frozen and  the ECB the only available funding option for many institutions.”

– Reuters, Nov 22, Frankfurt

The European Central Bank continued to buy Italian bonds on Tuesday in an effort to calm markets and slow the flight of capital from Europe. Yields on Italian and Spanish debt continued to rise increasing the cost of borrowing for the debt-stricken states. At the same time, the cost of borrowing euros in the interbank market  remained at elevated levels while credit market stress gauges (Libor) reached their highest point since July 2010. What started out as a brushfire on the perimeter (Greece) has now turned into a raging inferno that threatens to consume the eurozone. Here’s an excerpt from Roubini Global Economics Newsletter:

“Italian debt dynamics have become unsustainable in light of much-weaker-than-expected growth prospects and elevated borrowing costs. Following a sharp loss in market confidence and a buyers’ strike, we expect Italy will be forced to restructure its sovereign debt.

The environment of heightened political uncertainty in Italy has rendered it incapable of tackling the current challenges….

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Tyler Durden - Credit Suisse Goes For Broke: Predicts End Of Euro, Escalating Bank Runs On "Strongest European Banks"

Submitted by Tyler Durden on 11/21/2011 

http://www.zerohedge.com/print/440712

Just because Credit Suisse bankers are people too (even if 1% people, but still people), and just because they know too damn well that "no ECB intervention" means "no bonus", and very likely "no job", they go for broke and join Deutsche Bank, JPM, RBS, and everyone else (but, again, not Goldman), in predicting the end of Europe unless Draghi does his rightful duty and remembers that without banker support he will also be lining up at the jobless claims office very soon. Of course, being a Goldman boy, Draghi will only do what Lloyd tells him to. Either way, here is Credit Suisse's rejoinder to the global Mutual Assured Destruction tragicomedy, which now makes Honk (as Lagarde calls him) Paulson's overtures to congress seem like amateur hour. "We seem to have entered the last days of the euro as we currently know it. That doesn’t make a break-up very likely, but it does mean some extraordinary things will almost certainly need to happen – probably by mid-January – to prevent the progressive closure of all the euro zone sovereign bond markets, potentially accompanied by escalating runs on even the strongest banks. That may sound overdramatic, but it reflects the inexorable logic of investors realizing that – as things currently stand – they simply cannot be sure what exactly they are holding or buying in the euro zone sovereign bond markets...One paradox is that pressure on Italian and Spanish bond yields may get quite a lot worse even as their new governments start to deliver reforms – 10-year yields spiking above 9% for a short period is not something one could rule out. For that matter, it’s quite possible that we will see French yields above 5%, and even Bund yields rise during this critical fiscal union debate." Of course, the explicit message is: help us ECB-Wan Kenobi, you are our only hope. The implicit one is: do it, or we pull the trigger and blow it all up to hell.

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Dean Baker - Will the Euro be Destroyed?

NOVEMBER 18-20, 2011

An Ideological Tragedy

by DEAN BAKER

http://www.counterpunch.org/2011/11/18/will-the-euro-be-destroyed/

We could be living through the last days of the euro. That is not a happy thought. While there were many negative aspects to the rules governing the European Central Bank and the eurozone economies, no one can want to see the economic chaos that will almost certainly follow the collapse of the euro.

There will likely be a wave of bank collapses as banks are forced to write down much of the debt they hold in Italy, Ireland and other heavily indebted countries. This would bring about another Lehman-type situation where finance freezes up. Banks would stop lending to each other and even healthy businesses would find it difficult to obtain credit.

That is the story of a severe double-dip in the eurozone, with the spillover effect almost certainly pushing the United States and most of the rest of the world into recession.  It could easily be over a decade until these economies recover from the damage.

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BBC News - IMF says Chinese banks face risks, urges quick action

BBC News

15 November 2011

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-15732276?print=true

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has warned that China's financial system "faces a steady build up in vulnerabilities".

In a review, publicly released on Tuesday, the IMF said that banks were robust enough to withstand isolated shocks.

But not, it said, combined exposure to credit, property and currency risks.

The IMF has urged reforms, including allowing banks to rely more on market mechanisms such as interest rates.

"China's banks and financial sector are healthy, but there are vulnerabilities that should be addressed by the authorities," said Jonathan Fiechter, the head of the IMF team that conducted the review.

The IMF has recommended the Chinese government play less of a role in the banking system, and allow lending decisions to be based on commercial goals.

The current system has encouraged over-investment and fuelled asset bubbles, said the IMF.

"While the existing structure fosters high savings and high levels of liquidity, it also creates the risk of capital misallocation and formation of bubbles, especially in real estate," said Mr Fiechter.

The review said that this has lead to "low investment efficiency".

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Walden Bellow - The Puzzling Persistence of APEC

Wednesday 16 November 2011

by: Walden Bello, Foreign Policy in Focus 

http://www.truth-out.org/puzzling-persistence-apec/1321561579

The Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation has just concluded its annual summit in Honolulu, once President Obama’s home turf. It will probably be most remembered for the traffic jams it created in the Waikiki Beach area, to the consternation of residents and tourists alike.

APEC’s continuing existence is a puzzle to many, for APEC’s record of irrelevance is rivaled by few other international forums. It was not always so. I still remember the early 1990s, when APEC was one of the key battlegrounds against neoliberalism and free trade. The Uruguay Round of negotiations was stalled, and President Bill Clinton proposed and pushed for the Asia Pacific Free Trade Area as a U.S.-centered trading bloc that would counter the European Union if the Uruguay Round failed.

That first effort to create an APEC FTA failed, when the Osaka Summit in 1995 affirmed that liberalization would be carried out “voluntarily, flexibly, and in a non-binding fashion,” a position that had been pushed by key ASEAN countries along with Japan.

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Barry Grey - OECD Says Economic Slump Will Deepen Throughout the World

By Barry Grey 

Global Research, November 16, 2011

http://globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=27698 

The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) released a report Monday forecasting a further slowdown in the world’s largest economies. The Paris-based group comprises 34 countries, nearly all the major industrialized countries, but excluding China, Brazil and India. 

The OECD’s survey of composite leading indicators (CLIs) for September, which predicts economic trends some six months in advance, shows economic activity slowing in North America, Europe, major parts of South America and most of Asia, including China. 

The OECD report is the latest in a series of economic analyses and forecasts indicating that the anemic recovery from the financial crash and recession of 2008-2009 has run its course and is giving way to a new and even deeper global economic slump. 

The organization said the CLI index for its member countries—including the US, Canada, Mexico, Chile, Germany, Britain, France, Italy, Greece, Spain, the Netherlands, Turkey, Israel, Japan, South Korea, Australia and New Zealand—fell to 100.4 in September from 100.9 in August. It was the seventh straight monthly decline in the CLI for OECD states. The measure for major developing countries outside the organization also pointed to a further slowdown. 

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Mike Whitney - Big Finance Moves In for Eurozone Regime Change

November 14, 2011

by MIKE WHITNEY 

http://www.counterpunch.org/2011/11/14/big-finance-moves-in/

Greek Prime Minister Georgios Papandreou and Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi have both been forced from office and replaced by representatives of big finance. Mario Monti, who will replace Berlusconi, was formerly the European Chairman of the Trilateral Commission and a member of the Bilderberg Group. He is also listed on Goldman Sachs board of international advisers.

Lucas Papademos, who will replace Papandreou, was formerly the Vice President of the European Central Bank (ECB), and served as Senior Economist at the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston in 1980. He’s also been a member of the Trilateral Commission since 1998.

It’s also worth noting that the ECB’s new president, Mario Draghi, is a trustee at the Brookings Institution, a Fellow of the Institute of Politics at the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard, a former member of the Board of Directors of the Bank for International Settlements, and a former Managing Director at Goldman Sachs.

Global banking is an incestuous business where pedigree is everything. One’s personal history indicates their commitment to the system and whether they can be trusted to implement the policies that directly benefit finance capital. This new group of so-called “technocrats” will use their power to impose harsh austerity measures aimed at crushing the unions, dismantling the pension system, and privatizing public assets. Their belt-tightening policies will intensify the slump, shrink government revenues, increase unemployment and foment social unrest. As more of the eurozone’s leaders are replaced by bank hirelings, opposition to further eurozone integration will appear in the form of nationalist groups demanding a withdrawal from the 17-member monetary union. Peaceful protests will turn in pitched battles with police and state security forces as working people fight to have their voices heard. These confrontations will grow more commonplace as the economy deteriorates and desperation increases. Here’s an excerpt from an article in the World Socialist Web Site titled “Greece and the Dictatorship of Finance”:

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Olafur Arnarson and Michael Hudson and Gunnar Tomasson - "Vulture Capitalism": Iceland’s New Bank Disaster

A Dress Rehearsal for Greece and Italy? 

By Olafur Arnarson and Michael Hudson and Gunnar Tomasson

Global Research, November 15, 2011

http://globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=27673 

The problem of bank loans gone bad, especially those with government-guarantees such as U.S. student loans and Fannie Mae mortgages, has thrown into question just what should be a “fair value” for these debt obligations. Should “fair value” reflect what debtors can pay – that is, pay without going bankrupt? Or is it fair for banks and even vulture funds to get whatever they can squeeze out of debtors?

The answer will depend largely on the degree to which governments back the claims of creditors. The legal definition of how much can be squeezed out is becoming a political issue pulling national governments, the IMF, ECB and other financial agencies into a conflict pitting banks, vulture funds and debt-strapped populations against each other.

This polarizing issue has now broken out especially in Iceland. The country is now suffering a second round of economic and financial distress stemming from the collapse of its banking system in October 2008. That crisis caused a huge loss of savings not only for domestic citizens but also for international creditors such as Deutsche Bank, Barclay’s and their institutional clients.

Stuck with bad loans and bonds from bankrupt issuers, foreign investors in the old banks sold their bonds and other claims for pennies on the dollar to buyers whose web sites described themselves as “specializing in distressed assets,” commonly known as vulture funds. (Persistent rumors suggest that some of these are working with the previous owners of the failed Icelandic banks, operating out of offshore banking and tax havens and currently under investigation by a Special Prosecutor.)

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