Italy to follow Greece?....

It is a hot summer in Europe - and getting hotter, on one level, as EU finance people meet to address what seems like a crisis besetting Italy a la that in Greece.

""Europe fears for Italy," leads the Financial Times Deutschland as the bloc’s 27 member states hold an emergency meeting in Brussels on Monday July 11. Since the end of last week Italy has been targeted by the markets, and the costs of borrowing in the sovereign debt market are hitting record levels. According to a senior diplomat quoted in the Hamburg daily, EU finance commissioner Olli Rehn is "extremely concerned about the development of the situation in Italy" and is calling for "a comprehensive solution at last to save us from having to deal with one country after another." According to the Berlin daily Die Welt, the European Central Bank is suggesting expanding the European rescue mechanism to 1,500 billion euros. The FTD notes in its editorial that, yet again, quick action is needed. "So far, the rescue strategy has been address the concerns of small European states to avoid another shock. But a collapse of Italy would expose this as mere window dressing."

See also Spiegel on Line, here, dealing with the same topic.

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Robert Fisk's predictions for the Middle East in 2013

There is no gain-saying that Robert Fisk, fiercely independent and feisty to boot, is the veteran journalist and author covering the Middle East. Who doesn't he know or hasn't he met over the years in reporting from Beirut - where he lives? In his latest op-ed piece for The Independent he lays out his predictions for the Middle East for 2013. Read the piece in full, here - well worthwhile - but an extract... "Never make predictions in the Middle East. My crystal ball broke long ago. But predicting the region has an honourable pedigree. “An Arab movement, newly-risen, is looming in the distance,” a French traveller to the Gulf and Baghdad wrote in 1883, “and a race hitherto downtrodden will presently claim its due place in the destinies of Islam.” A year earlier, a British diplomat in Jeddah confided that “it is within my knowledge... that the idea of freedom does at present agitate some minds even in Mecca...” So let’s say this for 2013: the “Arab Awakening” (the t

The NPT (Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty) goes on hold.....because of one non-Treaty member (Israel)

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#1 Prize for a bizarre story.....and lying!

No comment called for in this piece from CommonDreams: Another young black man: The strange sad case of 21-year-old Chavis Carter. Police in Jonesboro, Arkansas stopped him and two friends, found some marijuana, searched put Carter, then put him handcuffed behind his back into their patrol car, where they say he shot himself in the head with a gun they failed to find. The FBI is investigating. Police Chief Michael Yates, who stands behind his officers' story, says in an interview that the death is "definitely bizarre and defies logic at first glance." You think?

Mahler's Prodigal Son

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