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French credit review threatens euro zone rescues
The U.S. ratings agency said late on Monday it may slap a negative outlook on France’s Aaa rating in the next three months if the costs for helping bail out banks and other euro zone members stretch its budget too much.The warning, which sent the risk premium on French government bonds shooting up to a euro lifetime high, came as European Union leaders are preparing measures to protect the region’s financial system from a potential Greek debt default.That plan includes a new rescue plan reducing Greece’s debt, strengthening the capital of banks with exposure to troubled euro zone sovereigns and leveraging the euro zone’s rescue fund to prevent market contagion to bigger economies.German leaders on Monday doused market hopes of a miracle cure at Sunday’s Brussels summit, saying no one should expect a “definitive solution.Finance Minister Francois Baroin insisted that France’s AAA status was not at risk but acknowledged that the 1.75 percent growth forecast on which the government has based its 2012 budget was over-optimistic and would have to be revised down.”It (France’s AAA credit rating) is not in danger because… we will even be ahead of schedule on passing deficit reduction measures,” Baroin said on France 2 television.Asked if next year’s growth forecast would have to be reduced in light of weak economic prospects, he added: “It is probably too high compared to the development of the economic situation. We will not adapt it today.”We will adapt it, that much is clear.France and Germany, the two strongest economies among the 17 euro zone members, form the backbone of the 440-billion-euro EFSF rescue fund and are drafting a crisis-fighting strategy for Sunday’s summit.Without France’s triple-A rating, the whole edifice of rescue measures for troubled peripheral euro zone states would begin to crumble, putting more weight on Germany, where there is a strong public backlash against bailouts.Moody’s said Paris’ progress on crucial fiscal and economic reforms as well as potential adverse developments in financial markets and the economy would be taken into account in the review.Monday’s review was only a preliminary step, but a negative outlook would be a sign that Moody’s could downgrade its rating on France in the next couple of years. Moody’s placed the United States’s Aaa rating on negative outlook in August.The two other major ratings agencies, Standard & Poor’s and Fitch, reaffirmed Paris’ triple-A rating in August when French banks came under fierce market pressure over their exposure to the weakest euro zone sovereigns.FRENCH SPREAD HITS RECORDIn early market reaction on Tuesday, the spread on French 10-year bonds over benchmark German bunds jumped to a 16-year high of 101 basis points, more than 1 percentage point.Safe-haven German Bund futures rose on ebbing hopes of a quick solution to the euro zone debt crisis after Moody’s warning on France’s triple-A rating.European shares fell, partly due to news that China’s growth slowed slightly more than expected in the third quarter. chief Josef Ackermann, who is also chairman of the IIF, resisting pressure on both fronts.Ackermann has objected to efforts to force banks to raise more capital and IIF lead negotiator Charles Dallara told Reuters on Monday that bigger writedowns on Greek bonds could only happen if policymakers addressed broader sovereign debt issues in Europe. -
Libya government brings more tanks to smash Sirte resistance
The mostly untrained militia army of the National Transitional Council (NTC) has been gradually tightening its strangle-hold around Sirte for weeks in a chaotic struggle that has cost scores of lives and left thousands homeless.It has also held up the attempt by Libya’s new leaders to try to build a democratic government as they say the process will begin only after the city is captured.NTC commanders say Gaddafi’s die-hard loyalists now only control an area measuring about 700 meters (yards) north to south, and around 1.5 km east to west; a residential area of mostly apartment blocks.The biggest obstacle to taking the town has been Gaddafi’s snipers hiding in the buildings. Tanks are used to hit the buildings from close range and dislodge the snipers.Behind the tanks, lines of pick-up trucks and scores of infantry readied for battle on Friday.Green flags, the banner of Gaddafi’s 42-year rule, flew above of the buildings ahead. Gaddafi himself is believed to be hiding somewhere in the vast Libyan desert.A senior NTC official however denied reports by other officials in the new government that Gaddafi’s son Mo’tassim had been captured in Sirte.Surrounded now on all sides, Gaddafi’s remaining forces in Sirte can have no hope of winning the battle, but are still fighting on, inflicting dozens of casualties with rocket-propelled grenades, mortars and small arms.One field hospital received two NTC dead and 23 wounded on Thursday. One of the dead men had been hit while taking food up to the fighters on the front line, doctors said.FEAR OF REPRISALSOne NTC commander said Gaddafi’s besieged forces were no longer using heavier weapons and he said they appeared to have lost their cohesion as a fighting force.”We’ve noticed now they are fighting every man for himself,” said Baloun Al Sharie, a field commander. “We tried to tell them it’s enough and to give themselves up, but they would not.”NTC officers say Gaddafi loyalists fear reprisals if they give themselves up.Some captured fighters have been roughed up by NTC forces and Amnesty International issued a report on Wednesday saying Libya’s new rulers were in danger of repeating human rights abuses commonplace during Muammar Gaddafi’s rule. The NTC said it would look into the report.Close to the center of the fighting in Sirte, government forces found 25 corpses wrapped in plastic sheets. They accused Gaddafi militias of carrying out execution-style killings. Five corpses shown to a Reuters team wore civilian clothes, had their hands tied behind their backs and gunshot wounds to the head.But as the battle for Libya draws toward what the NTC and NATO hope will be a close, both the new government and the Western alliance which helped topple Gaddafi are looking toward a return to normality.The provisional Libyan government and NATO signed an agreement on Thursday to immediately open air corridors for international civilian flights from Benghazi, and domestic flights between the second city and Tripoli and Misrata.This is one of the first step toward NATO lifting its no-fly zone over Libya imposed after Gaddafi began a military assault on civilians protesting his one-man rule. -
Fed’s Plosser: Weak jobs market a serious challenge
“Given the weak growth in employment so far this year, we have not made even the modest progress on reducing unemployment rates that many forecasters had anticipated,” he said.U.S. employers hired more workers than expected in September, according to the Labor Department’s employment report released earlier this month. Job gains for the prior two months were revised higher, easing recession fears, but the unemployment rate remained stuck at 9.1 percent for a third straight month.”As the economy strengthens, prospects for labor markets will continue to improve and the unemployment rate will gradually decline, undoubtedly too gradually for many of us,” he said.With the exception of his comments on the September jobs report, Plosser’s prepared remarks were similar to a speech given on September 29 in Radnor, Pennsylvania.Plosser is a noted ‘hawk’ on inflation and a voting member of the Fed’s policy-setting Federal Open Market Committee this year. He dissented from the Fed’s decisions in August and September to further loosen monetary policy to support a sputtering economic recovery. -
Hasta La Pista, Baby
The Olympic torch relay just got bigger, much bigger. At 106 days, the pre-Vancouver Winter Games run weighs in as the longest domestic relay in Olympic history and to help get it across the finish line… Arnie is back. Famous for his ‘I’ll be back’ and ‘Hasta la vista, baby’ catchphrases in the Terminator films, Arnold Schwarzenegger, now Governor of California, is nipping over to Canada to flex his pecs with a torch run through Vancouver’s famous Stanley Park. The former Mr Universe and Mr Olympia champion is the only heavyweight on a list you could describe as more Kindergarten Cop than Conan the Barbarian. Singer Michael Buble and retired professional hockey player Richard “King Richard, Kermit” Brodeur are among the names, which arguably lack a bit of A list grandeur. Who would you like to see bringing it home ahead of the start of the Games on Feb. 12?
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toshiba system recovery
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Making movies on your iPad using iMovie - Part 2
Part 1 here
Mellalieu, P. J. (n.d.). Making...
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jonathanbogart asked: Quick Lex canon of the past thirty years: what are your key records of the 80s, 90s, and 00s?
Pass on the ’80s; there’s plenty of music from that decade I love, but I kind of feel that if I...
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The Piaggio MP3 Hybrid Scooter
Due to go on sale in the US and Europe sometime very soon...
