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Getting the IMF to take the heat — and sell its gold? Posted by Gwen Robinson on Mar 12 12:36. The latest partial solution to many problems besetting - well, all kinds of sectors and areas of the world - seems to be to pump money into the IMF (ie, to massively expand the so-called “New Arrangements to Borrow”, a system by which the fund can borrow from its richer members - or, under the EU’s new proposal, reserves-rich members) and no doubt get it to bail out Eastern Europe. /snip As the FT reports Thursday, US Treasury secretary Tim...

What happened to Dave? Embarrassingly, I used to love him back in the good old days of the 80s and early 90s. Maybe I was just naive and foolish. For the record, screw Katie Couric! She is a hack!

Financial Times: Eastern European economies battered hard Yesterday, 12:21 This should have been a year of celebration in central and eastern Europe. It is 20 years since the Berlin Wall fell, the 10th anniversary of Nato's eastward expansion and five years after the European Union began its enlargement into the region: from the Baltic to the Black Sea, the countries that escaped from Soviet rule have much to commemorate. But the global economic crisis has spoilt the party. Instead of building on the achievements of the past two decades, the region's leaders are feeling the economic foundations shaking under their...

A blast occurred Monday at the Bucharest Nuclear, Biological and Chemical Defence and Ecology Research Center of the Romanian Ministry of Defense, killing one officer who was working there, the ministry said.Major engineer Octavian – Viorel Mihai received first aid from the unit’s doctor and was immediately taken to the nearest hospital, to receive specialized medical attention, but he passed away.The officer was 37 years old and was working at the center since 2004. Part of his job involved working with powders and explosives. Another two slightly injured in NBC Research Center explosion A woman who was injured in the...

Investors sold equities and piled into gold and U.S. Treasurys, a measure of the greenback against a trade-weighted basket of currencies, rose to 87.570 from 86.095 in late North American trade Friday. U.S. financial markets were closed for a holiday Monday. In recent weeks, the dollar and yen have benefited from safe-haven flows that are a reaction to the ongoing financial market crisis and economic slowdown, as investors shun riskier, higher-yielding investments in favor of lower-yielding funds. But news of the resignation of Japan's finance minister weighed on the yen Tuesday, giving the dollar an edge over its Japanese counterpart....

It is said that the only thing that people learn from history is that people learn nothing from history. Looking at how the world is handling the current economic crisis, this aphorism appears sadly true. World leaders have forgotten how the collapse of Wall Street in 1929 developed into a world-wide depression. It happened not thanks to market failures but as a result of mistakes made by governments which tried to protect their national economies and markets. The market was not allowed to make its corrections. Government interventions only prolonged the crisis. We may hope that, even as we see...

Vaclav Klaus, the new critic of Al Gore and Global Warming.

Once a hot spot, region could be heading financial crisis similar to Asia's NEW YORK (MarketWatch) -- Once a booming investment destination, Eastern Europe is now in serious trouble, and some fear it's poised to suffer its own version of Asia's financial crisis. Within the emerging-markets universe, the region stands out as particularly vulnerable to sharp macroeconomic contraction, further currency depreciation, and even risks of sovereign default. In Eastern Europe's predicament, some observers see clear parallels to what Asian economies experienced in the late 1990s. "You can compare Central and Eastern Europe to Asia in 1997 in the sense of...

Russia has dropped plans to install missiles near Poland after the Obama administration signalled a change in US attitude to the region, a Moscow military official has reportedly said. The official suggested that Mr Obama's White House had made clear it would not prioritise executing the Bush administration's plan to install a missile defence shield in Poland and the Czech Republic. An unnamed official in the Russian military's general staff said: "The implementation of these plans has been halted in connection with the fact that the new US administration is not rushing through plans to deploy" elements of its missile...

Let’s call it the Cuban Missile Crisis in reverse - this time, we backed down: Russia has dropped plans to install missiles near Poland after the Obama administration signalled a change in US attitude to the region, a Moscow military official has reportedly said. The official suggested that Mr Obama’s White House had made clear it would not prioritise executing the Bush administration’s plan to install a missile defence shield in Poland and the Czech Republic. There is supposed to be some power in soft power, is there not? As McKittrick, at Closing Velocity, points out: “Obama failed his first...

Nato is suffering from 'enlargement fatigue' and has no will to admit Georgia or Ukraine, according to Poland's foreign minister Radek Sikorski. Mr Sikorski, who is a leading contender to become Nato's secretary-general when the Alliance selects a new chief in April said both countries was a "fairly distant prospect". Radek Sikorski is a leading contender to become Nato's next secretary-general But he denied that Russia, which attaches great importance to thwarting Nato's enlargement, had achieved a victory. Ukraine and Georgia were both promised Nato membership at a summit in Bucharest last April. But no timetable was offered and, four...

Stefan Markovic slipped and stumbled on Belgrade’s icy streets and cursed both the Russians and the Ukrainians for the bad air he’s breathing. “Those damned Soviets!” he shouted. “First they destroyed us with their communism. Now they create more misery. They even poisoned the air we breathe.” A thick cloak of smog choked the capitals of Serbia, Bosnia and Hungary this week as residents and businesses resorted to burning oil, wood and coal — anything that might help them ward off the midwinter chill amid a natural gas dispute between Russia and Ukraine that has cut off supplies to Europe.

Gazprom would have to use extreme measures to make Ukraine return to the negotiations table, says Gazprom CEO Aleksey Miller. Ukraine has declined every Russian proposal concerning a new gas agreement and is continuing to steal Russia’s gas destined for Europe. Speaking at a media conference on Sunday, Aleksey Miller said that Ukrainian disagreed to pay the average European market price of $US 418 per 1,000 cubic metres for Russian gas. They also didn’t like the proposal to receive gas from Central Asia for $US 370 as well as the offer to pay $US 250 per 1,000 cubic metres –...

BRATISLAVA, Slovakia — When communist rule collapsed in Central Europe in 1989, taking with it the fat salaries the Soviets once paid to their elite athletes, the thick-necked wrestlers and karate stars of Slovakia began looking for a new line of work. They settled on a growth industry where a steroid-fueled physique was an advantage: the emerging Slovakian mafia. Nearly 20 years later, Slovakia's mob has become an important player in nearly every aspect of Slovakian life. Mob figures who once walked around town with baseball bats extorting money from bar owners now own the bars themselves. Mobsters have taken...

Perhaps nothing so clearly highlights the differences in perspective between Old Europe and the still first generation free Eastern Europeans like the current conflict in Israel. The Western Europeans who were given their freedom by hundreds of thousands of American soldiers are busy condemning Israel and ignoring hundreds of rockets fired by Hamas into Israel. The French, who hate everything good, lead the way...

Russia will station missiles in neighbouring Belarus if the United States goes ahead with plans for a missile defence shield based in Poland and the Czech Republic. The report comes from the Interfax news agency, which quotes a Russian defence ministry source. An official ministry spokesman has declined to comment on the report.

Keep missile shield out of Poland, Czech Republic, Obama warned By Moscow correspondent Scott Bevan Posted 9 hours 26 minutes ago Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin has warned the President-elect Barack Obama that Moscow will respond if he pushes on with plans for a missile defence system in Europe. Speaking at a human rights law conference in St Petersburg, Mr Putin has said the US plan for the missile defence shield is aimed at Russia's strategic potential. Russia can only give the project an adequate response, the Prime Minister added. Mr Putin has urged Mr Obama to drop the plan...

Polish President Lech Kaczynski arrived to Georgia to celebrate 5th anniversary of Georgia's Rose Revolution. When Polish president car was approaching Russian check point nearby brorder with Osetia presidential convoy got shot up. Shooting was directed from the side of Russian check point - presidential minister Michal Kaminski said. President Kaczynski wanted to visit refuge camp of Georgians who were forced to leave Osetia occupied by Russian Army. After the incident convoy was forced to return to Tbilisi.

ECHOES OF the Cold War have returned to Nato headquarters in Brussels after an Estonian general was unmasked as a “sleeper” spy who passed top secret alliance information to Moscow. Herman Simm (61), a retired official in Estonia’s defence ministry, has been arrested along with his wife on suspicion that they were recruited by KGB officers before the collapse of the Soviet Union. After Estonia’s independence in 1991, state prosecutors believe Mr Simm made contact with the KGB’s successor foreign intelligence agency, the SVR. The former police chief was the perfectly placed mole: between 1995 and 2006 he helped set...

Bush keeps Poland off visa list Nicholas Kralev Friday, October 17, 2008 President Bush angered staunch ally Poland Friday by excluding it from a group of newcomers to a program that allows citizens of certain countries to visit the United States without entry visas. At a Rose Garden ceremony, Mr. Bush announced rescinding visa requirements for six other former communist countries -- Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Hungary, the Czech Republic and Slovakia -- as well as South Korea, effective in about a month. "For years, the leaders of these nations have explained to me how frustrating it is for their citizens...