Free Republic

The eurozone is not equipped to bail out Spain, the country's prime minister Mariano Rajoy has admitted, as global traders continued to punish the nation's stocks and bonds. Mr Rajoy said it was "not possible to rescue Spain" but insisted his country did not need a Greek-style international bail-out anyway. "To talk about a bail-out for Spain at the moment makes no sense," he told reporters. "Spain is not going to be rescued; it's not possible to rescue Spain, there's no intention to, it's not necessary and therefore it's not going to be rescued." Despite his comments, the Madrid bourse...

Spain has been accused of planning “draconian” new laws against street protests by curbing the use of social networking. Jorge Fernandez Diaz, the Spanish interior minister announced in Congress on Wednesday that a reform of the penal code was planned to criminalise those involved in organising street protests that "seriously disturb the public peace". Under the laws, a minimum jail term of two years could be imposed on those found guilty of instigating and carrying out violent acts of protest under a new package of measures unveiled on Wednesday. But it has raised fears that the new measures could be...

Amnesty Intentional, Oxfam, Reporters without Borders as well as internet rights groups and the Council of Europe all spoke out against the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) at a European Parliament hearing on Wednesday (11 April). "The vision set out by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights is at stake," warned Marianne Mollmann, senior policy advisor of the London-based organization human rights group Amnesty International. Mollmann said the trade agreement threatens the right to the freedom of expression, the right to health, the right to due process and fair trial, and the right of an author to benefit from the protection...

The eurozone crisis has returned with a vengeance after Spain’s mounting woes pushed 10-year bonds yields back to the danger line of 6pc and the Madrid bourse crashed to its lowest level since the 2009. Markets took no notice of fresh austerity pledges from premier Mariano Rajoy, including new cuts worth €10bn in health and education - seen as a belated move to salvage Spain’s credibility after a spat with Brussels over fiscal slippage. Mr Rajoy said the bond attack should dispel the illusions of those who think Spain can muddle through without serious austerity. "Markets can decide to lend...

The EU's climate commissioner played down the impact of the controversial carbon tax being imposed by the bloc on airlines, saying Friday it would cost less than a cup of coffee per passenger. With the tax, sharply criticized by China and the United States, "a flight from Beijing to Frankfurt for example will cost around an extra two euros per passenger," Climate Commissioner Connie Hedegaard told the French daily Les Echos. "In other words, an amount less than that of a cup of coffee at the airport," she added. With the dispute intensifying over the tax, Hedegaard said it was...

A top scientist within the EU agency authorizing new drugs resigned on Wednesday (4 April) after being fired from France's national regulator, itself embroiled in scandals over poisonous diabetes drugs and failing breast implants. Eric Abadie, a French specialist in diabetes and heart-related diseases, had for the past five years been chaired a panel of experts giving scientific advice to the European Medicines Agency on authorizing the sale of new drugs on the EU market. "I am not aware of any criminal charges made against Dr. Abadie," Martin Harvey, a spokesman for the London-based EU agency told this website, adding...

The German Minister of Interior, Hans-Peter Friedrich, has asked that the Schengen agreement not be applied to Greeks travelers. The German government seems to be very concerned with the giant problem of illegal immigration in Greece, so much so that German airports have unofficially re-introduced passport checks and ID confirmations on every traveler coming from Greece. According to an interview he gave to national daily paper Rheinische Post, Friedrich suggested that there should be more border controls in the area where the Schengen agreement applies. "We need those controls not only when big events take place, such as football matches...

Bulent Arinc spoke at an inauguration ceremony at Urfa in Southeast Turkey: "In 2010 Turkish economy scored a 9% growth rate. This is an incredible result. Due to the global crisis countries in America and Europe are in debt, government changes occurred in Spain and Portugal. Salaries could not be paid, collective bargaining agreements are on hold, our neighbor Greece has national debt of one trillion dollars. They are in the brink of begging for money, all factories ceased production, they want to sell them but no one wants to buy. Turkey is among five countries in the World by...

France: Islamists seeking to avenge Merah's death By THOMAS ADAMSON, Associated Press – 1 hour ago PARIS (AP) — France's interior minister says some Islamist groups in France want to avenge the death of a Muslim radical, who the government says was responsible for the killing of seven people in a shooting spree in the country's south... On Tuesday, preliminary charges were filed against 13 people who were detained in a raid last week, all members of Forsane Alizza, or Knights of Pride, a recently banned group. Nine of them were jailed. The four others were released, but must report...

The European Union and the United States are giving serious thought to starting talks on a free trade agreement covering all business sectors, including agriculture, a traditional source of friction between the two sides, a top US trade official said. "A comprehensive agreement is obviously an important option to consider. It's one that we're taking a very close look at," Deputy US Trade Representative Miriam Sapiro told Reuters. The United States and the 27 countries of the European Union already have the largest economic relationship in the world. Two-way trade was about €490 billion in 2011 and investment by US...

My friend Bran who lives in Spain writes ... Hello Mish Here are thoughts from the last couple of days on the strikes, protests, and violence in the wake of more austerity plans by Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy. Pro-government news played down the strike to a virtual non-event, giving much criticism of the unions methods and exaggerations. Reality however, is that there is enough support by strikers to shape future politics, especially as austerity starts to bite. The unions have promised to step up protests. The Indignado 15 Million Movement also protested, but separately from the unions. One comment stuck...

Until now, Polyzonis's self-immolation was the most vivid image of a singular public act of protest in a country that's been shaken by anti-austerity violence. But Greece was jolted even more Wednesday after a 77-year-old man took his own life in the busy Syntagma Square, central Athens, the scene of several violent clashes between anti-austerity protesters and the police in recent months. Just a few hundred yards away from the Greek Parliament, retired pharmacist Dimitris Christoulas shot himself with a handgun amid the morning rush hour, in what was apparently a protest over the financial crisis gripping the nation… Christoulas's...

There are two major trends taking place that are shaping up as a recipe for disaster. On the one hand, we have massively indebted governments around the world desperate for tax revenues and, on the other, steadily growing multi-trillion underground economies whose main goal is to avoid paying them. According to a recent study, the amount of uncollected tax revenues in the U.S. is estimated around a whopping 500 billion dollars per year1—enough money to bailout most of Europe. At 8 percent of GDP, the underground or shadow economy in the U.S. is much smaller percentage-wise than other nations like...

More than 20 years after the fall of communism, the wealth gap between the east and west of Europe persists, and countries from the Black Sea to the Baltic are shedding people at an alarming rate. While membership in the European Union has brought prosperity to many, it has also made it easier to emigrate, drawing young people out of the east, especially rural areas, and leaving behind an ever older and poorer population. Romania, the EU’s second-poorest member with an average monthly wage of US$450, is one of the worst affected, with a 12% population drop in a decade,...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZDKk15KcqNk

The Obin Report showed a deep infiltration by radical Islam into the vast majority of French schools and a vitriolic hatred for Jews. What the Report showed was so alarming that the text was not initially disclosed. Nobody dares to say that more than thirty mosques all over the country broadcast incendiary remarks that have « nothing to do with the teachings of Islam, » and that the same remarks are received daily on television by tens of thousands of Muslims in France through the Arabic version of Al Jazeera. The Congress of the French branch of the Muslim Brotherhood...

Almost half of Irish people have refused to pay a household tax imposed as part of promised savings measures, while government pressure to secure the levy risks further angering an austerity-weary public. By a Saturday (31 March) midnight deadline, around 805,000 of the country's 1.6 million registered households had paid the tax, which has been subject to a high-profile boycott campaign. The Irish government agreed to introduce it in 2012 as part of a deal with the EU and the International Monetary Fund—from which it secured an €85 billion loan in 2010. … The boycott has been led by nine...

The citizens' initiative—a participative democracy tool coming into effect at the end of this week—could be used to pressure EU politicians into accepting a financial transactions tax (FTT), the European Parliament President has said. "I don't know if the next citizens' initiative would make the crisis disappear; I hope so. But a citizen's initiative to introduce the financial transactions tax could even increase the pressure on those who are still reluctant," Martin Schulz said at a press conference on Wednesday (28 March). His words come just as Germany—until now among the most ardent supporters of such a tax—appeared to concede...

The European Parliament is trying to cultivate a "European identity," with top officials saying that it is the only way to ensure a lasting union between member states. "National systems have very much invested in constructing their own identity," Klaus Welle, the secretary general of the European Parliament told an audience at the Center for European Policy Studies, a think-tank, on Thursday (29 March). "If we want to build a lasting union of solidarity we also need to invest in European identity. We need to understand history as European history and not just as compilation of national histories." Referring to...

SNIPPET: "MADRID – Spanish police on Tuesday arrested a suspected member of Al Qaeda who was key to the terror group's Internet propaganda and recruiting operations, officials said. The suspect arrested in the eastern city of Valencia "administered one of the world's most important jihadist forums", dedicated to recruiting and indoctrinating Islamic terrorists, Interior Minister Jorge Fernandez Diaz said. The name of that forum and the suspect's name were not given, only his initials, M.H.A. He is Jordanian-born with Saudi citizenship." SNIPPET: "The suspect worked at home "8 to 15 hours a day" for al-Qaida and for two offshoots, Al...