David Camerons message to Francois Hollande and Angela Merkel: Stop selling arms to Russia

Kudos to David Cameron for speaking out:

The Prime Minister condemned France’s plans to continue with a €1.2 billion (£950 million) sale of warships to Russia. Germany, France and Italy are responsible for 90 per cent of defence exports to Russia, MPs were told.
Mr Cameron said: “We have already unilaterally, as have the US, said that we would not sell further arms to Russia. We believe other European countries should be doing the same thing. Frankly in this country it would be unthinkable to fulfil an order like the one outstanding that the French have. But we need to put the pressure on with all our partners to say that we cannot go on doing business as usual with a country when it’s behaving in this way.”
The US has also urged the French to suspend the Mistral deal. “The Americans are absolutely furious about the French still training Russian military personnel,” said a diplomatic source.

Putin has blood on his hands - Merkel still speaks about "difficulties in the partnership"!

Russian dictator Vladimir Putin has blood on his hands, but his de facto ally Angela Merkel still speaks about "difficulties in the partnership, which we have to overcome"(!):

"Events have shown there must be a political solution, and here it‘s all about Russia‘s responsibility for what is happening in Ukraine right now," she said at her annual press conference in Berlin.

She criticized President Vladimir Putin for failing to act to end the fighting in east Ukraine, where the Kremlin is believed to have sway over separatist rebels, who have rejected Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko‘s offer to extend a ceasefire.

"That gesture of goodwill was not used," said Merkel. "The Russian president has influence over these Russian separatists."

Merkel keeps in regular contact with Putin and said she expected to speak with him again soon.

"I can see no other way than to speak to Putin," she said. "There are difficulties in the partnership, which we have to overcome."

France and Italy are even more reluctant to seriously challenge Putin, as US senator Kelly Ayotte has pointed out:

The United States imposed tougher economic sanctions on Russia less than 24 hours before the attack, but some European leaders — perhaps worried that Russia may cut off energy exports to their countries — balked at punishing Russian President Vladimir Putin for his support of anti-Kiev fighters.
“Is there anything we can do to encourage Europe to stand up?” Mitchell asked, noting that French President Francois Hollande and Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi have refused to participate in tough sanctions.
“Well if this turns out what we think it’s going to be, given the strong circumstantial evidence of the Russian-backed separatists bringing down the plane — Europeans were murdered in this,” Ayotte replied. “This is an international outrage.”
“And the Europeans — if they aren’t willing to do the right thing, in light of this commercial plane going down and the innocent people that have been murdered — I think it’s up to the United States to really put on the pressure to shame them into stepping up their economic sanctions,” the senator declared.

Latest EU poll: "Euroscepticism is soaring amid bailouts and spending cuts"

The latest European poll should make the pygmy politicians and Brussels eurocrats in charge of the slow motion train wreck known as the European Union scared to death: 

Public confidence in the European Union has fallen to historically low levels in the six biggest EU countries, raising fundamental questions about its democratic legitimacy more than three years into the union's worst ever crisis, new data shows.

After financial, currency and debt crises, wrenching budget and spending cuts, rich nations' bailouts of the poor, and surrenders of sovereign powers over policymaking to international technocrats, Euroscepticism is soaring to a degree that is likely to feed populist anti-EU politics and frustrate European leaders' efforts to arrest the collapse in support for their project.

Figures from Eurobarometer, the EU's polling organisation, analysed by the European Council on Foreign Relations (ECFR), a thinktank, show a vertiginous decline in trust in the EU in countries such as Spain,Germany and Italy that are historically very pro-European.

The six countries surveyed – Germany, France, Britain, Italy, Spain, and Poland – are the EU's biggest, jointly making up more than two out of three EU citizens or around 350 million of the EU's 500 million population.

The findings, published exclusively in the Guardian in Britain and in collaboration with other leading newspapers in the other five countries, represent a nightmare for Europe's leaders, whether in the wealthy north or in the bailout-battered south, suggesting a much bigger crisis of political and democratic legitimacy. 

"The damage is so deep that it does not matter whether you come from a creditor, debtor country, euro would-be member or the UK: everybody is worse off," said José Ignacio Torreblanca, head of the ECFR's Madrid office. "Citizens now think that their national democracy is being subverted by the way the euro crisis is conducted." --

The most dramatic fall in faith in the EU has occurred in Spain, where the banking and housing market collapse, eurozone bailout and runaway unemployment have combined to produce 72% "tending not to trust" the EU, with only 20% "tending to trust".

The data compares trust and mistrust in the EU at the end of last year with levels in 2007, before the financial crisis, to reveal a precipitate fall in support for the EU of the kind that is common in Britain but is much more rarely seen on the continent.

In Spain, trust in the EU fell from 65% to 20% over the five-year period while mistrust soared to 72% from 23%.

In five of the six countries, including Britain, mistrust prevailed over trust by sizeable margins, whereas in 2007 – with the exception of the UK – the opposite was the case.

Five years ago, 56% of Germans "tended to trust" the EU, whereas 59% now "tend to mistrust". In France, mistrust has risen from 41% to 56%. In Italy, where public confidence in Europe has traditionally been higher than in the national political class, mistrust of the EU has almost doubled from 28% to 53%.

The failure of the present European Union is becoming more apparent day by day. The co-founder of the Danish Saxo Bank, Lars Seier Christensen, has some interesting ideas about what could be done to stop the madness:

The big question raised in the book (by Vaclav Klaus) is really whether the EU is more the problem than the solution in the current crisis.

Both the EU and Denmark are in a difficult situation. The euro has shown its true colours and anyone with a rational view of the world sees the currency collaboration as a historic failure that can lead to even further fatal consequences for Europe and the continent’s competitiveness vis-à-vis the rest of the world. There is one thing, and only one thing, that can rescue the euro. That is a much more far-reaching integration between the euro countries; a common financial policy, joint debt issuing, a willingness to pay enormous transfers from the rich to the poor countries or, more specifically, from Germany to all the other member states.

That is a possible route, but not a desirable one. At least not for the citizens who in this case - like in too many other cases - seem to have fundamentally different interests than politicians. It requires a will to give up national independence to an extent that is not acceptable to the voters and, precisely because of this, can only be accomplished in an undemocratic manner.

A speech by British Prime Minister David Cameron on January 23 was extraordinarily important. It represented a strengthening of the critical debate that many Europeans are striving for. Until this moment, Václav Klaus was the only head of state who contributed to that debate. The fact that the prime minister of one of the EU’s most important countries is stepping forward as the focal point for citizens who want a different EU can turn out to be extremely important, although the initial reactions from the EU elite were as negative as they were predictable. The EU does not take criticism and debate lightly.

But with the UK’s forthcoming attempt to negotiate a less restrictive agreement with the EU, Pandora’s box has now been opened. Cameron’s rational reasoning will contribute to exposing the EU’s rigid insistence on more power despite the poor results. It will become increasingly difficult for both the Brits and other EU citizens to understand a firm rejection of Cameron’s five principles – competitiveness, flexibility, more power to the national states, democratic responsibility and fairness. That the EU will have to argue against such reasonable demands and as strongly as possible try to prevent referendums about them would only create more attention and more criticism not least because the Eurozone will come under further economic pressure as a possible referendum would be approaching in the UK in 2017.

It is a unique chance for the countries outside the Eurozone to create an independent forum chaired by Cameron. The Danish Prime Minister ought to have been on the first flight to London to discuss this. It did not happen, of course, but the hope for a better EU has been strengthened by Cameron’s newfound leadership.

Another European "success story": Eight Italians bought an electric car in February

Europeans give thumbs down to these.

In spite of all the environmental hype and subsidies, European car buyers continue to give the thumbs down to electric cars and hybrids. These are the latest sales figures from February:

• 8 Italians (out of a population of 60 million) bought an electric car in February.
• 0 Not one electric car was sold in Greece 
• 505 electric cars were sold in Germany (population 82 million)
• 648 electric cars were bought in France (population 65,6 million)

The market share for electric cars and hybrids in western Europe is a whopping 0,25%!

With this kind of sales, the German government's goal of having one million will of course never be reached. German car manufacturers are now crying for more subsidies:

“To support the development of alternative engines, we need positive conditions,” Zetsche, who is also the head of the European Automobile Manufacturers Association (ACEA), told business daily Handelsblatt. “At the same time it’s necessary to build the appropriate infrastructure.”Establishing new technology is unavoidably expensive, a cycle “we can only break if Europe supports the purchase of electric autos for a limited time,” he told the paper, adding that unified rules for the region would be ideal. 

Grillo's success a blessing in diguise: "Europe's Lost Generation Finds Its Voice"

As I tried to explain in an earlier post, the result of Italy's recent parliamentary election could actually be a blessing in disquise. Now German Der Spiegel seems to have come to a similar conclusion:

For years, Europe's young have grown increasingly furious as the euro crisis has robbed them of a future. The emergence of Beppe Grillo's party in Italy is one of the results -- and is just the latest indication that disgust towards European politics is widespread

Grillo is an Italian phenomenon, but his party's election results are an expression of the mounting rage and anxiety that is spreading throughout crisis-stricken Southern Europe. A new citizens' movement is taking shape, one that shares a mistrust of the established political system and a desire for more grassroots democracy. Only in Italy has it been democratically legitimized thus far.

These irate citizens are also united in anger against their own elite: politicians who have been tainted by party scandals and corruption, yet still remain in power or leaders who are seen as being the mere lackeys of Germany and Chancellor Angela Merkel.

Despite its name, Movimento 5 Stelle has long since ceased to be a movement. It has become a political party that is expected to take responsibility and make proposals for the formation of a government. During the campaign, it relied on a thin, 15-page platform.

The Grillini now have to prove that their country is not merely corrupt, indifferent and infiltrated by the Mafia. Ultimately, they could save Italy's image around the globe. They are the latest example of an uprising of the lost generation, that mass of people on Europe's periphery who are under the age of 40, desperate, unemployed and who have very little left to lose. The public outrage in Europe came to a boil in tent camps in Madrid's Puerta del Sol. It inspired the Occupy Wall Street activists. And it continued in Greece, where youth unemployment has reached 59.4 percent, and where there are no jobs and no economic recovery. =

Yet whereas the Greeks have not yet stirred up the old political system, the Grillini have found unexpected success. They were long underestimated in Italy, yet they long ago started having an effect. They have, for example, fundamentally shaken up the old party system, with its irreconcilable right-wing and left-wing factions. A new political class has emerged with them. Since the advent of the Grillini, Italians are debating Europe more than ever before, including their country's possible exit from the euro zone.

It must be terrifying for current bunch of European political leaders and Brussels eurocrats to watch the mounting anger, not only in southern Europe, but in other regions as well. In their hearts they must know that they have utterly failed, and that the day of reckoning cannot be far. 

The encouraging result of the Italian election: The failed euro project is one step closer to its final demise

Here is a brief summary of the Italian election:

Italy faced political deadlock on Tuesday after a stunning election that saw the anti-establishment 5-Star Movement of comic Beppe Grillo become the strongest party in the country and left no political group with a clear majority in parliament. The protest vote is also a clear signal of the failure of the EU-German sponsored austerity measures which were implemented by the government of the non-elected technocrat government of Mario Monti.

Most commentators concentrate on the "ungovernability" created by the election result, but the real story is the massive anti-EU vote, showing that Italians are tired of Brussels dictates. The eurozone - and the entire European Union - is burning, but the Brussels bureaucrats continue like nothing would have happened:

"It is up to leading politicians to negotiate to form a government with a stable situation so that reforms and consolidation of the budget can continue. There is no way back, there is no alternative," Mr. Van Rompuy told reporters during a visit to Estonia, saying that holding elections in the midst of a transition was always "a risk."

The European Commission said Mr. Monti's reform and fiscal-consolidation agenda would "underpin everybody's confidence" in the Italian economy, whose growth prospects are at best tepid. The EU's economics affairs chief, Olli Rehn, said Italy should "continue to address the challenges it faces" despite the "complex" outcome.

These people do not understand - or do not want to admit - that all this would not have happened without the failed common currency. The end of the euro is now one step closer. That is the most encouraging result of the Italian election. 

People such as Van Rompuy and Rehn are the real clowns - not Beppe Grillo and his likes - in this sad (and tragic) European circus. 

Sicily's traditional family businesses join the renewable energy revolution

Al Gore, Greenpeace, WWF and all the other environmentalists have been joined by a number of leading Italian family businesses in the fight against human caused global warming:

authorities swept across Sicily last month in the latest wave of sting operations revealing years of deep infiltration into the renewable energy sector by Italy’s rapidly modernizing crime families.

The still-emerging links of the mafia to the once-booming wind and solar sector here are raising fresh questions about the use of government subsidies to fuel a shift toward cleaner energies, with critics claiming huge state incentives created excessive profits for companies and a market bubble ripe for fraud. China-based Suntech, the world’s largest solar panel maker, last month said it would need to restate more than two years of financial results because of allegedly fake capital put up to finance new plants in Italy. The discoveries here also follow so-called “eco-corruption” cases in Spain, where a number of companies stand accused of illegally tapping state aid.

Roughly a third of the island’s 30 wind farms — along with several solar power plants — have been seized by authorities. Officials have frozen more than $2 billion in assets and arrested a dozen alleged crime bosses; corrupt local councilors and mafia-linked entrepreneurs. Italian prosecutors are now investigating suspected mafia involvement in renewable energy projects from Sardinia to Apulia.

“The Cosa Nostra is adapting, acquiring more advanced knowledge in new areas like renewable energy that have become more profitable because of government subsidies,” said Teresa Maria Principato, the deputy prosecutor in charge of Palermo’s Anti-Mafia Squad, whose headquarters here are emblazoned with the images of assassinated judges. “It is casting a shadow over our renewables industry.”

Read the entire article here

Renewable energy success stories

There have recently been quite a few stories about wind and solar industry failures in a number of countries. But we should not loose sight of the fact that renewable energy also has its fair share of successes. Subsidized wind energy has for example been a hit among Sicily's mafia gangs, who are working hard in order to modernize and diversify their traditional business model. 

Now we hear that illegal marijuana growers in the U.S. are wholeheartedly embracing solar power:

Illegal marijuana growers are increasingly using solar power to operate large-scale operations in an attempt to remain off the grid and avoid detection from law enforcement agents, authorities said.

In isolated regions of the country, law enforcement agencies say they are finding more growers going green and trying to be self-sufficient by drawing power directly from the sun.

New Mexico State Police recently busted up a marijuana operation around the Four Corners region that used solar panels to pump water. And authorities in California have stepped up enforcement against solar panel thefts from vineyards that they believe were headed to illegal growers.

“We’re definitely seeing more and more of it,” said New Mexico State Police Lt. Robert McDonald. “I think since the cartels down in Mexico are now having such a hard time getting their product up here that some growers are trying to grow it themselves and to (stop) us from finding them by using solar. It definitely makes it harder.”

During last month’s bust in New Mexico, agents raided a solar-operated facility and seized around 250 marijuana plants that were between six- to eight-feet tall in an isolated area of Rio Arriba County.

In 2010, police in Socorro, N.M., pulled more than 1,500 plants from three locations in a marijuana operation that detectives called “very elaborate and sophisticated.” Police said the operation use solar panels, water pumps, batteries and hundreds of yards of hose that functioned on timers.

The use of expensive solar panels allows illegal marijuana operations to avoid the need for massive power consumption from nearby power companies, tipping off local and federal authorities, investigators say.

The use also has sparked the demand of solar panels that has resulted in thefts of panels from homes and businesses.

In California’s Napa Valley, wineries and vineyards two years ago reported a rash of solar panel thefts that authorities believe were linked to a ring that sold the panels to illegal growers.

Michael Honig, president of Honig Vineyard and Winery in Rutherford, Calif., said after installing 819 solar panels, thieves took off with around 40 panels. “Around 10 to 11 wineries were hit,” Honig said. “So was a school.”

It is most likely that there are many other similar renewable energy success stories, which have not yet got the attention they deserve. 

Italy´s top scientist on the politicization of climate science

This is what Professor Antonino Zichichi, one of the world´s leading particle physicists, thinks about the politicization of climate science:

He is an angry man. Angry because he, like me, was brought up in the Classical tradition, which insists that the duty of every “seeker after truth” (Al-Haytham’s beautiful phrase for the scientist) is to be logical and rational. He founded the Federation at the height of the Cold War to remind scientists of their moral responsibility to use their craft for good, not for ill, and of their intellectual obligation to adhere rigorously to the scientific method.

Nino is furious at the politicization of climate science. Science these days is a monopsony. There is only one paying customer: the State. Scientists increasingly produce the results their political paymasters want rather than seeking after truth.

Nowhere is the buying of desired results by governments clearer than in Nick Stern’s now-discredited report of 2006 on climate economics. The U.N.’s absurd climate panel had already at least tripled the true (and harmless) rate of warming to be expected from our adding CO2 to the air. Stern, to please his socialist paymasters, tripled it again without the slightest justification. Then he divided by 10 the true cost of making global warming go away and multiplied by 10 the true cost of not acting to Save The Planet (memo to Old Nick: The planet was triumphantly saved 2,000 years ago and doesn’t need saving again).

Tony Blair, the shifty socialist prime minister of the day, was so delighted with this nonsense that he gave Stern a peerage and installed him as head of the Grantham Institute, a lavishly funded propaganda institution promoting fear of climatic Armageddon and hatred of the West.

Using Old Nick’s report as a pretext, Blair (with the near-unanimous support of all parties, including Call-Me-Dave Cameron’s Not-The-Conservative-Party) introduced the biggest tax increase in human history. With only three votes against, the Climate Change and National Economic Hara-Kiri Act was passed on the very night when the first October snow for 74 years was falling outside in Parliament Square.

Read Christopher Monckton´s entire article here.

Mario Monti - the amateur as Prime Minister

The technocrat who does not master the art of doublespeak

Mario Monti, Italy´s unelected technocrat Prime Minister has enraged politicians of all parties in Germany - and probably elsewhere, too - with his latest statement: 

Monti said that European leaders needed to defend their freedom to act against parliaments. "If governments allow themselves to be entirely bound to the decisions of their parliament, without protecting their own freedom to act, a break up of Europe would be a more probable outcome than deeper integration."

Since taking office in Italy in November, Monti has led a cabinet of technocrats that has the support of a broad majority in parliament. Nevertheless, when it comes to economic reforms, austerity measures and the euro bailout, Monti often struggles to patch together a majority ahead of key votes. But his comments also appear to be directed at Germany, where Chancellor Angela Merkel requires parliamentary approval for most of her major bailout policies.

In Berlin, a number of politicians have spoken out against Monti's comments. "The acceptance of the euro and its rescue is strengthened through national parliaments and not weakened," Joachim Poss, deputy floor leader for the center-left Social Democratic Party, told the Rheinische Post newspaper. The politician said it appeared that the image of parliament in Italy had suffered during the "unspeakable Berlusconi years."

Meanwhile, Frank Schäffler, a prominent euro-skeptic with the business-friendly Free Democratic Party, the junior partner in Merkel's coalition government, said any possible collapse of the European Union would be a product of too little democracy and rule of law rather than too much. His party colleague, FDP floor leader Rainer Brüderle, said when implementing the necessary reforms, people needed to "take care that Europe retains sufficient democratic legitimization."

'We Need Strengthening, Not Weakening of European Democracy'

Criticism of Monti erupted over the weekend after SPIEGEL pre-released quotes from the interview. Michael Grosse-Brömer a senior official with Merkel's Christian Democratic Union said that while a government's ability to act is of decisive importance, "that doesn't in any way justify an attempt to limit the parliamentary controls that are necessary in a democracy."

German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle, also of the FDP, joined the debate as well, saying that when it comes to European issues, "it is beyond discussion. We need a strengthening, not a weakening of democratic legitimation in Europe."

The sad truth is that the leaders of Europe have practiced exactly what Monti preaches during the last twenty or so years. But they have done it surreptitiously. By openly demanding a smaller role for the parliaments, the technocrat Monti shows that he is not a professional politician, who masters the art of doublespeak. 

(image by wikipedia)

Italy latest country to cut "incentives" to solar power

The same story everywhere: When governments cut "incentives" (read tax credits and subsidies) to solar power, the market quickly disappears. Now it is the Italian government, which has realized that heavily burden electricity consumers are not what is needed in these times of economic crisis:

Growth of solar power capacity in Italy, the world's second-biggest market, is expected to slow to 1,500-2,500 megawatts in 2012 after a 9,300 MW leap in 2011, due to a planned cut in incentives, a senior industry official said.
"It could be between 1,500 and 2,500 megawatts," Gerardo Montanino, director of operating division at GSE, Italy's green energy incentives management agency, said on the sidelines of a photovoltaic conference in northern Italy on Tuesday.
"It is very difficult to make more precise forecasts when the rules for the sector are changing," Montanino said.


The Italian government has announced a plan to scale back production incentives to the photovoltaic and other renewable energy this year to ease the burden on consumers, who pay for the industry support with their power bills.
--

A sharp fall in Italy's solar growth is bad news for major solar equipment makers such as Chinese group Suntech Power Holdings, Trina Solar, Yingli Green Energy Holding and U.S. firms First Solar and SunPower Corp.
--

Italian makers of solar power equipment, like their western peers, have been hit hard in the past couple of years by the growing competition from lower cost Asian rivals and may turn to the European Commission for help, the head of Italian PV industry association Comitato IFI said.
"We are considering whether to ask the European Commission to launch an anti-dumping action," Comitato IFI Chairman Alessandro Cremonesi told Reuters.
"But it is a very long process ... it would take at least two years, and the industry cannot wait 24 months," Cremonesi said.


Read the entire article here

Now also Italy will cut the subsidies to wind and solar energy projects

An increasing number of governmentsl are cutting subsidies to wind and solar energy. Now also the government of Italy has realized that there is a limit to how much taxpayers´ money can be wasted in order to enrich the owners of uneconomical renewable energy projects:


Italy will move to reduce taxpayer subsidies to its renewable energy sector after last year's boom in solar power, Industry Minister Corrado Passera says.
The official said Saturday in Cernobbio, Italy, that taxpayer subsidies doled out to the wind and solar power industries had generated "excessive" investments in the sector, The Wall Street Journal reported.
"Italy has important goals to meet and even surpass," he said, but added, "we need to do so without over-reliance on taxpayer resources."
The government, Passera said, will in the coming years "realign" the level of its incentives to those of other European countries.
The comments came a day after Paolo Andrea Colombo, chairman of Italian electric utility Enel SpA, said the heavy subsidization of alternative energy was hurting traditional producers such as his company.
"The development of renewables, combined with the stagnation of demand, is making it difficult to cover the production costs of conventional systems, putting at risk the ability to remain in operation," Colombo said.


Read the entire article here

Tell me who your friends are ....

William F. Jasper, writing in The New American, looks at the friendship between Vladimir Putin and former Italian prime minister Silvio Berlusconi:


Rather than merely calling Vladimir Putin on the telephone to congratulate him on his March 4 election victory for a new term as president of Russia, Silvio Berlusconi hopped in his jet and headed for Sochi, the Russian resort town that will be the site for the 2014 Winter Olympics. The Italian billionaire and media mogul, who resigned his position as Italy’s prime minister last November, is embroiled in legal battles over charges of bribery, corruption, illegal wiretapping, and sex with an underage prostitute, but those concerns took back burner to his party time with Putin.
--
Whatever his legal troubles may be, it was all smiles as Berlusconi was photographed hugging his longtime pal Putin and current Russian President Dmitry Medvedev at the Krasnaya Polyvana ski resort. London’s Daily Mail featured a photo slide show of the trio on the slopes and dining at a café in Sochi.

Russia Today (RT.tv), the Kremlin-run Putin propaganda channel, also featured a video of the three amigos.

The Berlusconi/Putin relationship has been a source of speculation and gossip for years. Berlusconi has made many trips to Putin-land and the former KGB/FSB chief has reciprocated, visiting Berlusconi’s huge luxury estate in the exclusive Porto Cervo enclave on the island of Sardinia’s Emerald Coast. Putin has even sent his teenage daughters to vacation at Berlusconi’s villa, a move that certainly calls into question Putin’s parental wisdom, considering the 75-year-old Berlusconi’s notoriety for bacchanalian orgies (as widely reported, for instance, here, here, and here) with young women, known as his “Bunga-Bunga Parties.”

And, as we reported last year, the Putin-Berlusconi plot thickened when Putin bought a neighboring luxury villa (albeit much smaller than Berlusconi’s) at Porto Cervo for 10 million euros. Where did Putin acquire the resources to buy a vacation domicile on one of the toniest pieces of real estate on the planet? He surely couldn’t have swung such a deal on his official KGB pay alone, or his salary as president or prime minister. The fact that that question was not even an issue in the Russian elections speaks volumes about the business-as-usual attitude toward institutionalized political corruption in Russia. Putin is, after all, the chief don or godfather in the Mafia State known as Russia, and it is more or less expected that he will partake of the same benefits that he and his Kremlin cronies have showered upon their favored oligarchs.
 
Mr. Berlusconi, of course, already boasted a huge personal fortune before assuming political office. That does not, however, make him immune to temptations to use his political connections to boost his business investments. The French television channel, France 24, reported recently:

Berlusconi was one of Putin's closest European allies before falling from power last year. He frequently came to Russia not just for diplomatic business but to celebrate his friend's birthday and other personal visits and clearly shares Putin's penchant for a macho lifestyle.

Diplomats in the US cables leaked by Wikileaks also described Berlusconi as acting as Putin's "mouthpiece" in Europe as well as "profiting personally and handsomely" in exchange.

One of the main targets of concern has been the Berlusconi/Putin-brokered South Stream gas pipeline, a massive joint project of Italy’s largest energy company, ENI, and Russia’s state-owned Gazprom.

Another close friend of former KGB agent Putin´s is, as we have previously pointed out, former German chancellor Gerhard Schröder, who has made his fortune thanks to his support of the Russian de facto dictator.

 

Italy remains true to its heritage

The new Italian government is working tirelessly to avoid an economic collapse. Whether signore Monti will succeed, remains to be seen. However, one cannot blame the Italians for failing to remain true to their heritage:

It was once confined to the sun-baked, sleepy south of Italy but the mafia is now the country's biggest business enterprise, with an annual turnover of €140bn (£116bn), according to an authoritative report.

The country's four mafia groups have broken out of their traditional strongholds in the dusty 'Mezzogiorno' south of Rome and spread their tentacles across the whole country, taking advantage of the economic crisis to snap up ailing businesses and ramp up their loan-shark operations.

They now boast estimated cash reserves of €65bn, collectively making them "Italy's biggest bank", according to a study released on Tuesday by Confesercenti, a prominent employers' association.

The groups make an estimated annual profit of €100bn – about 7pc of Italy's GDP.

Read the entire article here

Frau Merkel and all the other bigwigs in Brussels have repeatedly urged the Italians to adopt the new EU agenda, including a strong commitment to renewable energy. And that is exactly what the country´s biggest enterprise has been doing:

September, Italian police confiscated their largest ever collection of mafia assets when they seized assets worth $1.9 billion from a Sicilian businessman named Vito Nicastri. The haul included 43 wind and solar companies and around 100 properties, including luxury villas in western Sicily. Nicastri, known as "The Lord of the Wind" because he was the island's largest developer of wind farms, had been arrested the year before and accused of ties to Matteo Messina Denaro, a man believed to be the head of the Sicilian mafia.

Unlike the mob's usual criminal activities — trafficking in arms or drugs, investments in real estate, waste management and construction — the renewable-energy sector requires technical prowess. Which is why the mafia seems to have mainly taken on the role of middle man: arranging contracts, buying up land, organizing government permissions, snatching up the construction contracts. The overheated demand caused by subsidies has brought in financial speculation — some 90% of the authorizations to build power plants are subsequently sold — making the market particularly permeable to organized crime.

Read the entire article here

Reaping the benefits of free trade has been another catchword in the new Italian business drive:

The Italian fraud squad recently announced they were investigating allegations that the country's largest olive oil producers have adulterated Italian oil with cheaper imports from Spain, Greece, Morocco and Tunisia.
--
Mueller found that fraud was extensive, particularly adulteration and false labelling. The world's largest former dealer in olive oil, one Domenico Ribatti, plea-bargained his way to 13 months in prison during the 1990s for passing off Turkish hazelnut oil, which he had refined in his own plant, as olive oil. Another prominent importer, Leonardo Marseglia – appropriately based in a town called Monopoli – has variously been accused of selling cheap non-European oils as Italian ones, fudging documents to shirk import tariffs and forming a criminal network to smuggle contraband. Marseglia has denied the charges.
A 2007 EU investigation found that 95% of all known misappropriations of EU agricultural subsidies occurred in Italy, telling us something of the culture in which Italian olive oil fraud was taking place.

Read the entire article here


PS

On 20 January the ruling EU duumvirate Merkozy will arrive in Italy in order to learn more about the exciting new developments taking place in the midst of economic doom and gloom in Europe.
Hopefully they will not fail to express their gratitude to signore Monti´s predecessor, who´s contribution to the Italian heritage project should not be forgotton.

Addio Roma - Benvenuto Bruxelles!

                             Addio Roma - Benvenuto Bruxelles!

Italy has this year celebrated its 150 years of unification in grand style. Even EU poet "president" Herman van Rompuy joined in the celebrations by writing this haiku:

From the multitudes to unity
After a century-long journey
Together forever

But now it appears that Berlusconi´s foreign minister, former EU comissioner Franco Frattini, thinks that the country´s sovereignty and unity after all is not that important:

In a rare federalist outing, Frattini, a former European commissioner, may have given an indication of how serious the eurozone debt crisis is perceived in Rome.

"Different countries have different views on European federalism, but Italy is ready to give up all the sovereignty necessary to create a genuine European central government," Frattini told the Süddeutsche Zeitung on Wednesday (14 September).

Read the entire article here

"The EU Has Failed the Arab World"

German magazine Der Spiegel notes how the European Union has been propping up dictators in North Africa in the interest of stability. Now the divided EU is struggling to respond to the popular uprisings. The magazine describes the debate in the EU foreign ministers´ meeting on February 20:

But, as is typical in the European Union, the meeting turned into a heated dispute. Right after Lady Ashton finished reporting on recent talks she had had in Cairo and Tunis, Italian Foreign Minister Franco Frattini piped up. He spoke about the unrest in Libya, a country he claimed to know particularly well. He claimed that Libyan dictator Moammar Gadhafi was the only person who could guarantee the country's stability. The most important thing for now, he said, was preserving the country's territorial integrity. His colleagues from Greece and Malta seconded his opinion.

After that, the room fell silent. Germany's Werner Hoyer, a senior Foreign Ministry official who was attending the dinner as a stand-in for German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle, was one of the first to resume the conversation. "If that were our position, it would be a massive mistake and a betrayal of our fundamental values," he said. "Instead of worrying about Gadhafi, we should be happy when he's gone." (NNoN: Well spoken, Dr Hoyer!)

For weeks, a blossoming democratic movement in North Africa has been toppling one dictator after the other -- first in Tunisia, then in Egypt, now possibly in Libya. During this whole period, the reaction of Europe's governments can best be described as paralyzed. While Gadhafi's regime was ordering its forces to fire upon its own people, the reactions of the political elites -- whether in Brussels, Berlin, Paris or Rome -- were unsure, divided and without a plan.
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When it comes to determining Europe's policies in North Africa, national interests trump the principles expounded in the EU treaties. In regard to its former North African colonies, France still considers itself a regional power player. Malta and Cyprus have long-standing worries about stampedes of illegal immigrants. Italy made Libya one of its preferred trading partners.
As a token of his appreciation, Gadhafi has made massive investments in Italy in recent years. Libya owns a 7.2 percent stake in Unicredit, Italy's largest bank, 2 percent of Finmeccanica, Italy's most important arms manufacturer, and another 2 percent of FIAT, its largest automotive company. Libya also owns a 7 percent stake in Juventus Turin, the publicly traded and massively popular football club. Similarly, more than 100 Italian companies are active in Libya, including the oil and gas giant Eni, the transportation electronics company Ansaldo STS and the construction company Impregilo.

Read the entire article here.

The European Union unable to reach a common position on Libya

(EU Human Rights propaganda picture)

“Human rights are at the centre of the EU’s external action and the work of the newly established European External Action Service. We defend and promote human rights in all aspects of our work”
Catherine Ashton, High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy

No matter how many hundreds or thousands of civilians are murdered by Libyan madman Gaddafi´s mercenaries, the European Union is unable to reach a common position:

Tunisia, Egypt and now Libya: The Arab revolution has taken German and European foreign policy makers by surprise. German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle have yet to adopt a clear stance on the crisis.
The Arab world is in turmoil -- but German and European politicians can't keep up with events. It is reminiscent of 1989 when East Germany crumbled before everyone's eyes, even though some in the West had only recently praised the stability of what was thought to be the world's tenth most important industrial nation.

Back then, there was neither a concrete plan nor a strategy. Politicians muddled their way through but the outcome, fortunately, was a success.

Another region of the world is now in upheaval -- and politicians are looking similarly stranded.

Italy´s Berlusconi is not willing to desert his "friend", madman Gadddafi:

The European Union, meanwhile, has not been able to agree on a common position. Italy is against sanctions. Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi has friendly relations with Gadhafi and spoke to him on Tuesday. Two years ago the two countries signed a friendship treaty in which Italy pledged to pay €3.4 billion ($4.6 billion) in compensation for its colonial rule, over 25 years. In return, Gadhafi agreed to intercept immigrants travelling to Italy. In addition, Italy relies on Libyan gas and crude oil.

Read the entire article in Der Spiegel here.

PS
Once again, the European Union shows that it is only a "paper tiger", despite all the talk about being a leading international player. So far, this is the only concrete EU action on Libya:

Declaration by the High Representative Catherine Ashton

on behalf of the European Union on Libya


The EU has decided to suspend negotiations with
Libya on the EU-Libya Framework Agreement and is ready to take further measures.

Impressive, dear Baroness!

Libya :Gaddafi´s friend Berlusconi opposes EU sanctions

Finland´s foreign minister Alexander Stubb today suggested that the European Union applies sanctions against the Gaddafi regime. However, the EU foreign ministers were not able to agree on sanctions because Italy, with the support of some other southern countries were against the proposal:

According to unconfirmed reports, Libyan authorities killed at least 300 demonstrators in recent days in what would be the bloodiest response to the pro-democracy uprisings that have erupted in North Africa and the Middle East since January.
Italy, however, has led a camp of southern EU states wanting to avoid antagonizing Tripoli over concerns Libya could halt cooperating on migration policies.
Finland's Foreign Minister, Alexander Stubb, had urged the bloc to consider stronger measures.
'There was a suggestion, a proposal from our colleague Stubb, (but) many other colleagues responded that clearly we now need to think about a transition process, not about creating the conditions for a new confrontation,' Italy's Franco Frattini said.
Frattini also said it would have been wrong to call for Gaddafi's resignation in the wake of the crackdown.
'The European Union has never said who should go and who should stay,' he explained.
Stubb had earlier had asked: 'How can we on one side look at what's going on in Libya, with almost 300 people shot dead, and not talk bout sanctions or travel bans ... for Gaddafi, and at the same time put travel bans and sanctions in Belarus?'

Read the entire article here.

How right Stubb is, but it now seems clear that Silvio Berlusconi wants to protect his "friend" Moammar Gaddafi. Shame on Italy and its supporters!

Italy now close to euro danger zone

Ambrose Evans-Pritchard, International Business Editor of the Telegraph notes that Italy is now on its way to the euro high-risk zone:

Italy's debt costs approach red zone

Italy's borrowing costs have jumped to the highest level since the financial crisis over two years ago, raising concerns that Europe's biggest debtor may slip from the eurozone's stable core into the high-risk group on the periphery.

It is possible that the recent action taken by the EU leaders is not sufficient:

Willem Buiter, Citigroup's chief economist, said the response had been "woefully inadequate", raising the risk of fresh bank failures and a wave of sovereign defaults next year. He said the EU authorities may need a mix of measures worth up to €2 trillion to stop the rot.