NightBlogger

Steven Erlanger with The New York Times writes, “People fear the future, and now with the banking crisis, they are even more afraid,” she said, her eyes reddening. “They buy a bottle at the supermarket and they drink it at home.” The plight of Ms. Guerin is being replicated all over France, as traditional cafes and bars suffer and even close, hit by changing attitudes, habits and now a poor economic climate. In 1960, France had 200,000 cafes, said Bernard Quartier, president of the National Federation of Cafes, Brasseries and Discotheques. Now it has fewer than 41,500, with an average of two closing every day.

“The cafe…is a kind of public living room, especially in small towns and cities, and it is suffering as habits and laws change. We need the cafe to have an equilibrium between the village and the world outside…Without the cafe, you lose the conviviality. You lose your mates. Business agreements are made behind the zinc of the bar. We need to preserve the cafe bar. What is a village but a cafe, a school, a pharmacy, a bakery and a city hall?”

He pointed at a customer sitting alone at a table drinking a glass of tap water. “That’s our new customer!” he shouted. Then he turned to a group of bank employees at another table and said, “You see, they got 386 billion euros from the government, but they can’t spend a cent when they come here!” More

You can bet the statistics are far worse than those reported by Eurostat and I don’t believe for a New York Minute France’s economy is still growing. No one in the real world believes governments, banks and politicians any more. Things are even worse in eastern Europe.

Times Online
The eurozone has fallen into recession for the first time since the single currency was introduced in 1999, official figures show this morning. Eurostat, the European Union statistics agency, said third quarter GDP across the 15-nation eurozone shrank 0.2 per cent, following a 0.2 per cent fall in the previous quarter. A recession is defined as two quarters of negative growth. Yesterday, Germany, Europe’s largest country, fell into recession for the first time in four years but it emerged today that GDP in France is still growing, up 0.14%. However, Spain admitted today that growth shrank by 0.2 per cent. More

The French state has threatened to seize control of the country’s banks and fire top staff unless they do their part to stabilise the economy by stepping up lending to companies in need. “The banks have got to open up credit to business: they have the means to do it,” said prime minister Francois Fillon, accusing lenders of hoarding cash. “We don’t think the banks are stepping up to task as necessary. We can withdraw the credit that we have extended to them under the state’s contract with the banks, and that will put them in difficulty. At that moment the question arises whether we should take an equity stake, change their managers, and assume control over their strategy.” More

Germany joined Ireland and Greece on Sunday in guaranteeing all private savings accounts, putting Europe’s biggest economy at odds with calls for a unified European response to the global financial meltdown. The decision came as governments across Europe scrambled to save failing banks, working largely on their own a day after leaders of the continent’s four biggest economies called for tighter regulation and a coordinated response. Their failure to agree an EU-wide plan showcased the divisions in Europe on how to deal with the crisis. France had suggested a multibillion-dollar EU-wide government bailout plan, but backed off after Germany said banks must find their own way out. More

Times Online
France heaped pressure on Gordon Brown last night by floating an ambitious plan for a €300 billion (£237 billion) bailout fund to rescue crippled banks across Europe. As the world held its breath on the fate of America’s $700 billion bank bailout plan, President Sarkozy was seeking the backing of European leaders for his own lifeboat. Mr Brown also faced demands for action from British banks, furious that the Irish Republic’s unilateral guarantee of all bank savings on Tuesday was robbing them of precious deposits. The British Bankers’ Association, which represents high street banks, said that the move was anti-competitive and that it was raising the issue with Dublin. Some banks would like to see the UK respond with its own explicit guarantee.

The Prime Minister has begun to set up an emergency committee to take charge of Britain’s response to the crisis. The body will be similar to Cobra, which is composed of ministers and government officials and meets regularly during crises such as last summer’s floods. Its secretariat will be run from the Cabinet Office. Mr Sarkozy, whose country holds the European presidency, is seeking Mr Brown’s support before an emergency summit, scheduled tentatively for Saturday, with Silvio Berlusconi, the Italian Prime Minister, and Angela Merkel, the German Chancellor. His proposal was greeted with scepticism in Britain and outright hostility in Germany. It appears to involve the creation of a Europe-wide emergency fund that would be used to prop up banks when national governments are unable to intervene.

Ms Merkel said that Germany could not and would not issue a blank cheque for all banks, “regardless of whether they behave in a responsible manner or not”. Amid the confusion and bickering between governments, France denied at first that it had put forward a proposal for a fund at all and then, after admitting that it had done so, denied that it would cost ¤300 billion. Paris said that the figure had come from the Dutch Government. Officials in The Hague said that they had no idea what the French were talking about.

Mr Brown is expected to announce his new crisis committee today or tomorrow at the same time as his reshuffle to replace Ruth Kelly, the Transport Secretary, who has asked to step down. Ed Miliband, one of Mr Brown’s key lieutenants, could be promoted. There is still a question mark hanging over Alistair Darling’s future as Chancellor. More

Ambrose Evans-Pritchard
The twin missives more or less sum up the dramatic change in mood sweeping financial markets since it became evident that the entire bloc of rich OECD countries has succumbed to the delayed effects of the credit crisis. Japan contracted by 0.6pc in the second quarter, Germany by 0.5pc, France and Italy by 0.3pc. Spain recalled the cabinet last week for an emergency summit. New Zealand and Denmark are in recession. Iceland contracted at a catastrophic 3.7pc in the second quarter. “The whole decoupling thesis has started to come apart at the seams,” said David Bloom, currency chief at HSBC. “Canada is frozen over. We have Arctic conditions in Sweden, and the UK is falling off the white cliffs of Dover.” The US fiscal stimulus package that kept spending afloat in the second quarter is running out fast. There is nothing yet to replace it. The export boom cannot keep adding juice as the global crunch hits. My fear is that the US will tip into a second, deeper leg of the downturn, setting off a wave of savage job cuts. This will start to feel more like a real depression. More

TFEX 08-4 “Operation Brimstone” Flexes Allied Force Training

Navy NewsStand

Story Number: NNS080715-21
Release Date: 7/15/2008 5:17:00 PM

From Commander, U.S. 2nd Fleet Public Affairs

NORFOLK (NNS) — More than 15,000 service members from four countries will participate in Joint Task Force Exercise (JTFEX) 08-4 “Operation Brimstone”, July 21-31 in North Carolina and off the eastern U.S. coast from Virginia to Florida.

JTFEX 08-4 serves as a ready-for-deployment certification event for the Theodore Roosevelt Carrier Strike Group (TR CSG) and the Iwo Jima Expeditionary Strike Group (IWO ESG). The exercise will also serve as a Joint Task Force Capable Headquarters sustainment event. In addition, JTFEX 08-4 will offer preliminary accreditation for 2nd Fleet’s Maritime Headquarters with Maritime Operations Center (MHQ with MOC)). MHQ with MOC is a new approach to command and control for fleet commanders.

“This exercise is a tremendous opportunity to train; not only as the Navy and Marine Corps team, but with our joint and coalition partners as well,” said Commander, 2nd Fleet Vice Adm. Marty Chanik.

“JTFEX 08-4 will flex our warfighting capabilities from the operational level through expeditionary strike force and strike group operations with several of our coalition partners – France, Brazil and the United Kingdom.”

The exercise also marks the first time that forces from Navy Expeditionary Combat Command are participating in an East-Coast JTFEX. NECC forces operating in the littorals and riverine environment are supporting integrated operations.

“Navy Expeditionary Combat Command provides a self-contained adaptive force package with a command element tailored to support the full spectrum of operations from major combat operations to unconventional and irregular warfare,” said NECC commander Rear Adm. Mike Tillotson.

U.S. and coalition naval assets underway for the exercise include the U.S. aircraft carrier USS Theodore Roosevelt (CVN 71), the amphibious assault ship USS Iwo Jima (LHD 7) with associated units including the British aircraft carrier HMS Ark Royal (RO 7), the Brazilian Navy frigate Greenhalgh (F-46) and the French submarine FS Amethyste (S 605). BNS Greenhalgh is the first Brazilian Navy ship to operate integrated in a U.S. strike group.

French Rafale fighter aircraft assigned to the 12th Squadron, and Hawkeye early warning aircraft assigned to the 4th Squadron will conduct carrier qualifications and cyclic flight operations with U.S. Carrier Air Wing 8 during Theodore Roosevelt Carrier Strike Group’s Joint Task Force Exercise. This marks the first integrated U.S. and French carrier qualifications and cyclic flight operations aboard a U.S. aircraft carrier. More

Webster G. Tarpley
…the United States and NATO now escalating the hopeless and unwinnable Afghan war, and is preparing to send US and NATO forces on the ground to seize parts of Pakistan, a country which is almost 3 times more populous than Iran, and possesses a nuclear arsenal and the means to deliver it. The Bush-Cheney-neocon era in foreign policy is over, and the Brzezinski-Trilateral-Rockefeller-Soros phase of aggression has begun; the US hit list now features Chinese allies like Sudan, Zimbabwe, and Pakistan. Brzezinski is striving to put together some huge provocation for the Beijing Olympics, to make the Chinese government lose face and begin disintegrating. The ultimate targets of the new Obama-Brzezinski foreign policy are Russia, China, and the other members and friends of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, the main pole of resistance in the world to the designs of Washington and London. The stakes are now much higher than a mere conventional clash in the Persian Gulf. Brzezinski’s adventurism goes far beyond that of the neocons, and objectively places the danger of a thermonuclear exchange on the world agenda. Watch for the Polish-Czech-Lithuanian missile crisis, a Balkan crisis, and a crisis between Georgia and Russia to point the world in this ominous new direction.

The US government is now being run by the Principals’ Committee, an interagency cabal that includes Defense Secretary Gates, Secretary Of State Rice, Joint Chiefs Chairman Mullen, Secretary of the Treasury Paulson, and other operatives of the Trilateral Wall Street financier faction. It is clear that under the new policy, Iran will be able to continue to process uranium: ‘The Bush administration’s decision to send a senior American official to participate in international talks with “More news and information about Iran.” Iran this weekend reflects a double policy shift in the struggle to resolve the impasse over the country’s nuclear program. First, the Bush administration has decided to abandon its longstanding position that it would meet face to face with Iran only after that country suspended its uranium enrichment, as demanded by the “More articles about Security Council, U.N.” United Nations Security Council. Second, an American partner at the table injects new importance to the negotiating track of the six global powers confronting Iran - France, Britain, Germany, Russia, China and the United States - even though their official stance is that no substantive talks can begin until uranium enrichment stops. The increased engagement raised questions of whether the Bush administration would alter its stance toward Iran as radically as it did with North Korea, risking a fresh schism with conservatives who have accused the White House of granting concessions to so-called rogue states without extracting enough in return.’ (New York Times, July 17, 2008) This gambit of appeasing Iran is being done in the hopes of turning Iran against Russia and China ­ a project of incalculable folly. Brzezinski is glad to see the Iranians have nukes, because he thinks he can keep them, pointed at Moscow. More

MADRID (AFP) - Tens of thousands of truckers in Spain, France and Portugal on Monday stepped up protests against rising fuel prices, causing mayhem on highways and blocking border crossings. Huge tailbacks built up around major cities and on the French-Spanish border as French fishermen in Mediterranean ports ended their three-week strike over the spiralling cost of fuel.

Spain’s second largest hauliers’ union Fenadismer, which claims to represent 70,000 out of Spain’s 380,000 truck drivers, launched an open-ended strike on Monday. Although the strike was “peaceful”, it was being observed “massively”, the union said. Talks Monday between the hauliers and the government ended in failure, Fenadismer said.

French truckers struggling with high fuel costs staged fresh protests near the Spanish border and in the southwest. Several trucks from the southern city of Perpignan disrupted traffic at border posts, preventing trucks from crossing and causing a tailback of some 10 kilometres (six miles) on both sides of the border. Private cars were allowed through. More

IRAQ is interested in buying sophisticated French weaponry to help re-equip its military as it moves to take over security duties from coalition forces, a government spokesman said today. Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki raised the issue in talks with visiting French foreign minister Bernard Kouchner, who was on a two-day visit to Iraq, his second in nine months. Much of Iraq’s air force and military equipment was destroyed during the 2003 US-led invasion. The army, which relies on US military firepower in combating militants, has a few Soviet-era battle tanks and armoured personnel carriers. More

JORDAN AND France on Friday signed two agreements for cooperation in the peaceful development of nuclear technology and political coordination on regional and international issues, according to an official statement. The accords were signed by Jordanian Foreign Minister Salah Bashir and his French counterpart Bernard Kouchner, who also held talks on latest developments in the Middle East.

The nuclear cooperation agreement provides for using nuclear reactors for generation of electricity, the extraction of uranium from phosphate mines in Jordan, the training of Jordanian manpower and arrangements for nuclear safety, Chairman of the Jordanian Atomic Energy Commission (JAEC) Khalid Touqan said. More

French fishermen strike provokes violent clash with police.

PARIS (AFP) — Tens of thousands of French workers took to the streets on Thursday as unions mounted a one-day show of force against President Nicolas Sarkozy’s government over pension reforms. Major queues of trucks also built up at the Channel port of Calais because of a strike against dock privatization plans.

Unions hoped to draw half a million people into the streets, with six in 10 French people saying they support the movement, according to a poll in Liberation newspaper. Between 40,000 protestors, according to police, and 150,000 according to unions turned for early protests in Nantes, Rouen and Le Havre in the west, Grenoble and Marseille the southeast and Clermont-Ferrand in the centre.
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