Πέμπτη 9 Δεκεμβρίου 2010
Prince Charles's car attacked in London
A car carrying Prince Charles and Camilla in central London is attacked by protesters in violent scenes after MPs vote through a huge rise in tuition fees in England
Ντόρα Μπακογιάννη: Όχι σε νέα αύξηση του ΦΠΑ,
ας ανοίξει διάλογος για ένα πιο φθηνό Ευρώ.
Η πρόεδρος του κινήματος “Δημοκρατική Συμμαχία” Ντόρα Μπακογιάννη, μετά τη συνάντησή της με τον επίτροπο Οικονομικών Υποθέσεων Όλι Ρεν έκανε την ακόλουθη δήλωση:
Οι Έλληνες κάνοντας μεγάλες θυσίες, καταβάλουν μεγάλη προσπάθεια προκειμένου η χώρα μας να αντιμετωπίσει την οικονομική κρίση. Έθεσα στο κ Όλι Ρεν τέσσερα πολύ κρίσιμα ζητήματα που συνδέονται με την επιτυχία της προσπάθειας αυτής.
1. Η δημοσιονομική προσαρμογή θα πρέπει να στηριχθεί, μεταφέροντας μεγαλύτερο βάρος αυτής της πολιτικής , στην περικοπή της δαπάνης και της σπατάλης του δημόσιου τομέα και πολύ μικρότερο στα έσοδα και σε νέες φορολογικές επιβαρύνσεις. Οι παραγωγικές δυνάμεις δεν αντέχουν νέους φόρους. Κυρίως η αγορά δεν αντέχει νέα αύξηση του ΦΠΑ γιατί το μόνο που θα πετύχει είναι περαιτέρω επιβάρυνση των οικογενειακών προϋπολογισμών. Αντίθετα θα πρότεινα έστω και μια μικρή μείωση κατά 1 μονάδα, που θα έδινε ψυχολογικά τουλάχιστον ώθηση στην αγορά
2. Η ενίσχυση της ανταγωνιστικότητας της χώρας μας, αλλά και ολόκληρου του νότου της Ευρωπαϊκής Ένωσης, περνά και μέσα από την αλλαγή στρατηγικής της ΕΚΤ γύρω από το θέμα του σκληρού ευρώ. Ο διάλογος αυτός πρέπει να ανοίξει, αν θέλουμε η ευρωζώνη να αποφύγει τα χειρότερα. Και στο πνεύμα του ευρωπαϊκού συμβιβασμού, ο νότος να προσφέρει περισσότερη δημοσιονομική πειθαρχία και βαθιές διαρθρωτικές αλλαγές και ο βοράς ένα φθηνότερο ευρώ.
3. Η επιμήκυνση της αποπληρωμής του δανείου είναι ένα θετικό βήμα, όμως πιο σημαντικό από τη διάρκεια της επιμήκυνσης είναι το θέμα του ύψους του επιτοκίου. Επιτόκια που αγγίζουν το 6% απέχουν πολύ από το να χαρακτηριστούν λογικά και δεν τα αντέχει η ελληνική οικονομία.
4. Προκειμένου να τονωθεί η ρευστότητα της αγοράς και η δημιουργία θέσεων απασχόλησης είναι σημαντικό να συμφωνήσουμε σε ένα νέο πιο ευέλικτο μοντέλο χρηματοδότησης από τα διαρθρωτικά ταμεία της ΕΕ, έτσι ώστε η Ελλάδα να παίρνει τα χρήματα που δικαιούται γρήγορα, χωρίς τις εξοντωτικές καθυστερήσεις που ισχύουν σήμερα.
Η πρόεδρος του κινήματος “Δημοκρατική Συμμαχία” Ντόρα Μπακογιάννη, μετά τη συνάντησή της με τον επίτροπο Οικονομικών Υποθέσεων Όλι Ρεν έκανε την ακόλουθη δήλωση:
Οι Έλληνες κάνοντας μεγάλες θυσίες, καταβάλουν μεγάλη προσπάθεια προκειμένου η χώρα μας να αντιμετωπίσει την οικονομική κρίση. Έθεσα στο κ Όλι Ρεν τέσσερα πολύ κρίσιμα ζητήματα που συνδέονται με την επιτυχία της προσπάθειας αυτής.
1. Η δημοσιονομική προσαρμογή θα πρέπει να στηριχθεί, μεταφέροντας μεγαλύτερο βάρος αυτής της πολιτικής , στην περικοπή της δαπάνης και της σπατάλης του δημόσιου τομέα και πολύ μικρότερο στα έσοδα και σε νέες φορολογικές επιβαρύνσεις. Οι παραγωγικές δυνάμεις δεν αντέχουν νέους φόρους. Κυρίως η αγορά δεν αντέχει νέα αύξηση του ΦΠΑ γιατί το μόνο που θα πετύχει είναι περαιτέρω επιβάρυνση των οικογενειακών προϋπολογισμών. Αντίθετα θα πρότεινα έστω και μια μικρή μείωση κατά 1 μονάδα, που θα έδινε ψυχολογικά τουλάχιστον ώθηση στην αγορά
2. Η ενίσχυση της ανταγωνιστικότητας της χώρας μας, αλλά και ολόκληρου του νότου της Ευρωπαϊκής Ένωσης, περνά και μέσα από την αλλαγή στρατηγικής της ΕΚΤ γύρω από το θέμα του σκληρού ευρώ. Ο διάλογος αυτός πρέπει να ανοίξει, αν θέλουμε η ευρωζώνη να αποφύγει τα χειρότερα. Και στο πνεύμα του ευρωπαϊκού συμβιβασμού, ο νότος να προσφέρει περισσότερη δημοσιονομική πειθαρχία και βαθιές διαρθρωτικές αλλαγές και ο βοράς ένα φθηνότερο ευρώ.
3. Η επιμήκυνση της αποπληρωμής του δανείου είναι ένα θετικό βήμα, όμως πιο σημαντικό από τη διάρκεια της επιμήκυνσης είναι το θέμα του ύψους του επιτοκίου. Επιτόκια που αγγίζουν το 6% απέχουν πολύ από το να χαρακτηριστούν λογικά και δεν τα αντέχει η ελληνική οικονομία.
4. Προκειμένου να τονωθεί η ρευστότητα της αγοράς και η δημιουργία θέσεων απασχόλησης είναι σημαντικό να συμφωνήσουμε σε ένα νέο πιο ευέλικτο μοντέλο χρηματοδότησης από τα διαρθρωτικά ταμεία της ΕΕ, έτσι ώστε η Ελλάδα να παίρνει τα χρήματα που δικαιούται γρήγορα, χωρίς τις εξοντωτικές καθυστερήσεις που ισχύουν σήμερα.
Junior Gotti 60 Minutes Interview
John “Junior” Gotti sat down for an lengthy interview on 60 Minutes with newsman Steve Kroft about his life on the streets , his father , and his time behind bars. The interview will be aired on Sunday on CBS at 7 p.m. in full check your local listings for exact channel. Gotti goes into detail on various in depth parts of his life and the up and downs of growing up Gotti.
Junior gotti tells about the first time he learned exactly who his father John Gotti Sr really was a real life Mafia boss. He was 14 years old and at the military school he attended in 1979 and his and some of his friends were watching a tv program. The tv show goes on to say this man is a captain in the Gambino crime family and it was Gotti , Junior said he was mortified while watching. He said he was quietly watching and not saying anything and then some of his fellow cadets turned and looked at him putting together the same last name and wanted to know was he actually the son of the notorious Dapper Don. Junior said many of the guys found it to be pretty cool while at same time some of them were likely a little intimidated. They had a lot of questions Junior said that were mixed with some fear and some adoration like “Does your father kill people? ” or “Does your father beat people up?” to which Junior responded “Not around the house”.
Junior also goes into detail about what he called the proudest moment of his life when he was officially “made” into the Gambino crime family. The day Junior officially became a mobster he said he felt like he was slowly becoming like his father. Gotti Jr said the day he was “made” he could tell his father John Sr. was very happy and proud , he said he thought his dad was as proud as any other father would be if his son made all-American. Junior said of his father “He was my cause” and “whatever he was is what i wanted to be”. Junior said if his father was not part of the mafia lifestyle then he probably wouldn’t have been either. Junior said that if my dad said he wanted to be a butcher , i would tell him , i hope you have a smock for me because that’s the way i felt.
Junior Gotti said his father really loved being a gangster , he loved everything about it. Junior said my father lived that lifestyle 24/7 and his wife and kids were even second to the street life. Gotti Jr said dad just loved the streets , he loved the code and the action that kind of lifestyle supplied. Junior said that his father resigned to the fact that he would very likely die behind bars before it was all said and done. Junior said Gotti Sr used to say that anyone who was really and truly lived the street life not the fringe players or pretenders but the guys who really lived the hard street life like he did that at the end of the day you got to die or go to jail , that’s the rules and just the way it was.
Gotti also talks about some of his younger years and home life including the death of his younger brother Frank. Frank Gotti was killed in a car accident where he was struck and killed by a neighbor in 1980. Junior said his father didn’t show much emotion at the time but from his bedroom and he at times could hear his father crying through the vents. The driver of the car that killed Frank , John Favara later went missing and its been long suspected that Gotti Sr ordered his murder. Kroft asks Junior if his father had anything to do with Favara’s disappearance , and Junior said knowing how his father felt about certain things like his family , probably so ! Junior said he could not say for certain because that is something that his father would have never discussed with him.
Junior also said that he could acknowledge that his father was a killer. He said that he wasn’t sure that you could ever justify murder but he felt he could at least make some kind of argument for it. He said his father John was part of the streets and he swore that was his life and he would live and die by the rules and the code of the streets. Junior said that everyone his father killed , was accused of killing , wanted to kill , or tried to kill was part of that same world and the same code. Junior said his father always said that ‘You break the rules , you end up in a dumpster’.
Junior gotti tells about the first time he learned exactly who his father John Gotti Sr really was a real life Mafia boss. He was 14 years old and at the military school he attended in 1979 and his and some of his friends were watching a tv program. The tv show goes on to say this man is a captain in the Gambino crime family and it was Gotti , Junior said he was mortified while watching. He said he was quietly watching and not saying anything and then some of his fellow cadets turned and looked at him putting together the same last name and wanted to know was he actually the son of the notorious Dapper Don. Junior said many of the guys found it to be pretty cool while at same time some of them were likely a little intimidated. They had a lot of questions Junior said that were mixed with some fear and some adoration like “Does your father kill people? ” or “Does your father beat people up?” to which Junior responded “Not around the house”.
Junior also goes into detail about what he called the proudest moment of his life when he was officially “made” into the Gambino crime family. The day Junior officially became a mobster he said he felt like he was slowly becoming like his father. Gotti Jr said the day he was “made” he could tell his father John Sr. was very happy and proud , he said he thought his dad was as proud as any other father would be if his son made all-American. Junior said of his father “He was my cause” and “whatever he was is what i wanted to be”. Junior said if his father was not part of the mafia lifestyle then he probably wouldn’t have been either. Junior said that if my dad said he wanted to be a butcher , i would tell him , i hope you have a smock for me because that’s the way i felt.
Junior Gotti said his father really loved being a gangster , he loved everything about it. Junior said my father lived that lifestyle 24/7 and his wife and kids were even second to the street life. Gotti Jr said dad just loved the streets , he loved the code and the action that kind of lifestyle supplied. Junior said that his father resigned to the fact that he would very likely die behind bars before it was all said and done. Junior said Gotti Sr used to say that anyone who was really and truly lived the street life not the fringe players or pretenders but the guys who really lived the hard street life like he did that at the end of the day you got to die or go to jail , that’s the rules and just the way it was.
Gotti also talks about some of his younger years and home life including the death of his younger brother Frank. Frank Gotti was killed in a car accident where he was struck and killed by a neighbor in 1980. Junior said his father didn’t show much emotion at the time but from his bedroom and he at times could hear his father crying through the vents. The driver of the car that killed Frank , John Favara later went missing and its been long suspected that Gotti Sr ordered his murder. Kroft asks Junior if his father had anything to do with Favara’s disappearance , and Junior said knowing how his father felt about certain things like his family , probably so ! Junior said he could not say for certain because that is something that his father would have never discussed with him.
Junior also said that he could acknowledge that his father was a killer. He said that he wasn’t sure that you could ever justify murder but he felt he could at least make some kind of argument for it. He said his father John was part of the streets and he swore that was his life and he would live and die by the rules and the code of the streets. Junior said that everyone his father killed , was accused of killing , wanted to kill , or tried to kill was part of that same world and the same code. Junior said his father always said that ‘You break the rules , you end up in a dumpster’.
Scientists Discover Gene That Makes Boys Develop as Girls
Scientists have pinpointed a gene in humans that causes male embryos to develop female genitalia, according to a report from New Scientist.
Andrew Sinclair of the Murdoch Children’s Research Institute in Australia hopes the discovery will aid in the diagnosis and treatment of sex developmental disorders.
One in every 4,500 babies have gene mutations that lead to disorders of sex development (DSD), the researchers point out. Often this leads to ambiguous genitalia or physical appearances that contrast their chromosomal gender -- such as girls who do not develop breasts or have excessive body hair.
Sinclair, along with Harry Ostrer of New York University compared the genes of 16 people affected by DSD where male embryos developed female genitalia and overall appearance. All 16 patients had a mutation in the MAP3K1 gene. In follow-up tests in mice, the equivalent gene was found to be highly active during development.
According to Sinclair, the MAP3K1 gene is part of a complex signaling pathway that leads to normal testes development.
"It's a long genetic pathway to testis development," said Roger Short, a reproductive biologist at the University of Melbourne, Australia. Short is "completely convinced" that this gene plays a part in some cases of DSD.
Andrew Sinclair of the Murdoch Children’s Research Institute in Australia hopes the discovery will aid in the diagnosis and treatment of sex developmental disorders.
One in every 4,500 babies have gene mutations that lead to disorders of sex development (DSD), the researchers point out. Often this leads to ambiguous genitalia or physical appearances that contrast their chromosomal gender -- such as girls who do not develop breasts or have excessive body hair.
Sinclair, along with Harry Ostrer of New York University compared the genes of 16 people affected by DSD where male embryos developed female genitalia and overall appearance. All 16 patients had a mutation in the MAP3K1 gene. In follow-up tests in mice, the equivalent gene was found to be highly active during development.
According to Sinclair, the MAP3K1 gene is part of a complex signaling pathway that leads to normal testes development.
"It's a long genetic pathway to testis development," said Roger Short, a reproductive biologist at the University of Melbourne, Australia. Short is "completely convinced" that this gene plays a part in some cases of DSD.
Dems Play Let's Make a Deal on Tax Cuts Plan
WASHINGTON—The sweeping tax package negotiated by President Barack Obama and Republican lawmakers gained new momentum toward passage in the Senate, building pressure on balking House Democrats to accept the controversial deal.
The framework of the package seems likely to remain intact, but lawmakers and lobbyists were trying to attach favored provisions into what is likely to be one of the biggest bills to pass the lame duck Congress. Potential additions include a grant program for clean-energy projects that expires at the end of this year.
The scramble to get such provisions included was a sign of growing support for the deal. Senate leaders worked to finish drafting the details of the legislation and prepared for a floor debate as early as Friday, only days after Obama unveiled the framework for the tax package on Monday.
In the House, Democratic leaders continued to withhold support. Vice President Joe Biden visited Capitol Hill's most hostile quarter—the House Democratic Caucus—where senior members have strongly objected to provisions in the tax package benefiting upper income taxpayers.
But Biden bluntly told House members that the deal was done and unlikely to be significantly changed, according to participants in the meeting.
INTERESTED IN
Derailed: Why High-Speed Trains Haven't Caught On in the U.S. AT&T Slapped Again With Lowest Rating by Users Socialism: Rearing its Ugly Head Again Charity Sex: The Holiday Gift That Keeps on Giving Celebrity Twitter Ban Campaign a Bust, Can't Raise $1 Million; Stars Freak Out "The White House made a deal, and it's emboldened the Republicans,'' said Rep. Jim McGovern (D., Mass.), an opponent of the agreement. "It's hard to roll back."
Some Democrats are hoping to make the bitter pill easier to swallow by securing other provisions they favor. Sen. Maria Cantwell (D., Wash.) and 20 other senators, nearly all Democrats, were pushing for the clean-energy grant program, which many Republicans oppose.
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D., Nev.) has floated a proposal to legalize Internet poker, but the idea is opposed by a leading architect of the tax deal, Sen. John Kyl (R., Ariz.). "It's not going to happen,'' Kyl said
The framework of the package seems likely to remain intact, but lawmakers and lobbyists were trying to attach favored provisions into what is likely to be one of the biggest bills to pass the lame duck Congress. Potential additions include a grant program for clean-energy projects that expires at the end of this year.
The scramble to get such provisions included was a sign of growing support for the deal. Senate leaders worked to finish drafting the details of the legislation and prepared for a floor debate as early as Friday, only days after Obama unveiled the framework for the tax package on Monday.
In the House, Democratic leaders continued to withhold support. Vice President Joe Biden visited Capitol Hill's most hostile quarter—the House Democratic Caucus—where senior members have strongly objected to provisions in the tax package benefiting upper income taxpayers.
But Biden bluntly told House members that the deal was done and unlikely to be significantly changed, according to participants in the meeting.
INTERESTED IN
Derailed: Why High-Speed Trains Haven't Caught On in the U.S. AT&T Slapped Again With Lowest Rating by Users Socialism: Rearing its Ugly Head Again Charity Sex: The Holiday Gift That Keeps on Giving Celebrity Twitter Ban Campaign a Bust, Can't Raise $1 Million; Stars Freak Out "The White House made a deal, and it's emboldened the Republicans,'' said Rep. Jim McGovern (D., Mass.), an opponent of the agreement. "It's hard to roll back."
Some Democrats are hoping to make the bitter pill easier to swallow by securing other provisions they favor. Sen. Maria Cantwell (D., Wash.) and 20 other senators, nearly all Democrats, were pushing for the clean-energy grant program, which many Republicans oppose.
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D., Nev.) has floated a proposal to legalize Internet poker, but the idea is opposed by a leading architect of the tax deal, Sen. John Kyl (R., Ariz.). "It's not going to happen,'' Kyl said
Leader of Bonanno Family Florida Crew Sentenced
The leader of a powerful Bonanno crime family crew that operated out of florida has finally been sentenced. Thomas Fiore lead the Bonanno based florida crew from Boynton Beach which included 10 members nince of which were men and one woman. Fiore received a sentence of 12 years and seven months for his role in charges of federal racketeering. Fiore pleaded guilty back in October.
Fiore has family ties to the Bonanno family going back to his uncle Gerard “Gerry” Chilli who is a reputed Bonanno family Capo. Chilli himself is awaiting sentencing on loan sharking charges in New York. Fiore was busted along with Chilli in 2005 in what the fed’s called “Operation Coldwater” which included investigations into drugs , illegal gambling, extortion , and other various crimes. There were 10 other co-defendants which have now all taken plea deals.
The Fed’s infiltrated the Florida crew via an undercover officer and intercepted phone calls linking Fiore to the crimes. Fiore would solicit the undercover officer for help in laundering money , selling stolen good, handling fake checks, and identity theft. Fiore also conspired to have his own business a gym named Round 1 Fitness Center burned down so he could collect the insurance money. Fiore even has been linked to at attempted murder of a business partner but the identity of the partner is unknown.
Fiore would travel back and forth from Florida to New York to meet with the leadership of the Bonanno Family to report and get any orders. The Bonanno family along with other New York Mafia families have been reported to have crew’s operation in Florida which has long been an organized crime hot spot.
Fiore has family ties to the Bonanno family going back to his uncle Gerard “Gerry” Chilli who is a reputed Bonanno family Capo. Chilli himself is awaiting sentencing on loan sharking charges in New York. Fiore was busted along with Chilli in 2005 in what the fed’s called “Operation Coldwater” which included investigations into drugs , illegal gambling, extortion , and other various crimes. There were 10 other co-defendants which have now all taken plea deals.
The Fed’s infiltrated the Florida crew via an undercover officer and intercepted phone calls linking Fiore to the crimes. Fiore would solicit the undercover officer for help in laundering money , selling stolen good, handling fake checks, and identity theft. Fiore also conspired to have his own business a gym named Round 1 Fitness Center burned down so he could collect the insurance money. Fiore even has been linked to at attempted murder of a business partner but the identity of the partner is unknown.
Fiore would travel back and forth from Florida to New York to meet with the leadership of the Bonanno Family to report and get any orders. The Bonanno family along with other New York Mafia families have been reported to have crew’s operation in Florida which has long been an organized crime hot spot.
Bonanno and Lucchese Family Bust
The Fed’s have unsealed an 18 count indictment that contained charges on nine members of organized crime. The charges range from racketeering , racketeering conspiracy, extortion and other various crimes. The indictment charges members of the Bonanno and Lucchese families of La Cosa Nostra. Half of the members named in the indictment were already detained on various charges and the remaining gangsters were arrested.
The Four defendants that were arrested on Wednesday were Carlo Profeta , Anthony Mannone , Eric Maione, and Jerome Caramelli. Anthony Mannone is a reputed captain in the Bonanno Family , Jerome Caramelli is a Bonanno family associate , Salvatore Cutaia is a reputed Lucchese family soldier , Domenico Cutaia is a reputed Lucchese family capo , Carlo Profeta is an actiing capo in the Lucchese family, Eric Maione and Joseph Cutaia are reputed Lucchese family associates.
Extortion charges ranging from a gambling operation run by Caramelli where Mannone, Caramelli , Sal Cutaia, Profeta and others threatened individuals with physical harm if they did not pay up their gambling debts. Wiretaps caught the defendants tossing around these threats while they ran the illegal gambling operation and on one occasion has Caramelli acting on orders of Mannone threatening one gambling client saying that “Tomorrow all **** will break loose since the caller had not called in with any significant payment news , noting that he (Mannone) had already decided that this is not going to end good.
This case continues to prove the fact that La Cosa Nostra families are still active and on the streets doing what they do looking to make money in old and new rackets. If convicted the mob members face maximum sentences of up to 20 years in jail. These are once again blows
The Four defendants that were arrested on Wednesday were Carlo Profeta , Anthony Mannone , Eric Maione, and Jerome Caramelli. Anthony Mannone is a reputed captain in the Bonanno Family , Jerome Caramelli is a Bonanno family associate , Salvatore Cutaia is a reputed Lucchese family soldier , Domenico Cutaia is a reputed Lucchese family capo , Carlo Profeta is an actiing capo in the Lucchese family, Eric Maione and Joseph Cutaia are reputed Lucchese family associates.
Extortion charges ranging from a gambling operation run by Caramelli where Mannone, Caramelli , Sal Cutaia, Profeta and others threatened individuals with physical harm if they did not pay up their gambling debts. Wiretaps caught the defendants tossing around these threats while they ran the illegal gambling operation and on one occasion has Caramelli acting on orders of Mannone threatening one gambling client saying that “Tomorrow all **** will break loose since the caller had not called in with any significant payment news , noting that he (Mannone) had already decided that this is not going to end good.
This case continues to prove the fact that La Cosa Nostra families are still active and on the streets doing what they do looking to make money in old and new rackets. If convicted the mob members face maximum sentences of up to 20 years in jail. These are once again blows
Reputed Genovese boss Arillotta Turncoat status solidified
Some people in mafia circles still considered it simply a rumor that reputed Genovese crime family boss Anthony J. Arillotta had flipped and was now working for the Fed’s and were in wait and see mode. Well that looks to have ended now when Arillotta was a no show for a pre-trial conference in his case this week. This pretty much locks up the fact that Arillotta is now co-operating with authorities.
Arillotta was arrested in February along with six other defendants in a racketeering indictment which included the killing of mobster Adolfo “Big Al” Bruno. But right after he was arraigned in March Arillotta disappeared from the prison system prompting many to believe he was likely cutting a deal to co-operate and turn rat. Neither Arillotta’s lawyer nor the prosecutors would comment on the status or location of Arillotta.
But not long after Arillotta’s disappearing act the Fed’s began searching a wooded area for what looked like remains of a possible body. Bones recovered at the dig site in Agawam are believed to be that of Gary D. Westerman who had ties to Arillotta but the Fed’s have yet to confirm that information or bring any charges for the Westerman murder.
Arillotta is also charged with putting a hit out of rival mobster Big Al Bruno with permission from Arthur “Artie” Nigro of New York’s Genovese family. Arillotta wanted Bruno hit because he thought he was an informant for the Fed’s so he had his then muscle man Fotios Geas set up the hit. Geas paid Frankie A. Roche ten thousand dollars to shoot Bruno as he left his weekly card game. Roche has already turned rat and pleaded guilty to killing Bruno and entered witness protection. If convicted Nigro and Geas could get the death penalty and with Roche already lined up to testify and now Arillotta likely doing the same it is not looking good for the pair of mobsters.
Judge P. Kevin Castel entered the court room for the pre-trial hearing where all the defendants in the case had gathered except for Arillotta. After looking over the court room the Judge asked ” Is Mr. Arillotta here , or is there anyone representing him ? ” and U.S. Attorney Mark Lanpher stood up and stated ” I think the court can excuse his presence Judge”. This ended any further discussion about Arillotta and has erased any doubt that he is now playing for the other side.
Arillotta was arrested in February along with six other defendants in a racketeering indictment which included the killing of mobster Adolfo “Big Al” Bruno. But right after he was arraigned in March Arillotta disappeared from the prison system prompting many to believe he was likely cutting a deal to co-operate and turn rat. Neither Arillotta’s lawyer nor the prosecutors would comment on the status or location of Arillotta.
But not long after Arillotta’s disappearing act the Fed’s began searching a wooded area for what looked like remains of a possible body. Bones recovered at the dig site in Agawam are believed to be that of Gary D. Westerman who had ties to Arillotta but the Fed’s have yet to confirm that information or bring any charges for the Westerman murder.
Arillotta is also charged with putting a hit out of rival mobster Big Al Bruno with permission from Arthur “Artie” Nigro of New York’s Genovese family. Arillotta wanted Bruno hit because he thought he was an informant for the Fed’s so he had his then muscle man Fotios Geas set up the hit. Geas paid Frankie A. Roche ten thousand dollars to shoot Bruno as he left his weekly card game. Roche has already turned rat and pleaded guilty to killing Bruno and entered witness protection. If convicted Nigro and Geas could get the death penalty and with Roche already lined up to testify and now Arillotta likely doing the same it is not looking good for the pair of mobsters.
Judge P. Kevin Castel entered the court room for the pre-trial hearing where all the defendants in the case had gathered except for Arillotta. After looking over the court room the Judge asked ” Is Mr. Arillotta here , or is there anyone representing him ? ” and U.S. Attorney Mark Lanpher stood up and stated ” I think the court can excuse his presence Judge”. This ended any further discussion about Arillotta and has erased any doubt that he is now playing for the other side.
IAF Responds to Rocket Fire in the Negev
Israeli fighter pilots retaliated in the wee hours of Wednesday morning for rocket fire aimed at western Negev communities over the past two days.
Three short-range rockets were fired from Gaza at southern Israeli towns, although there were no reports of casualties or damage in any of the attacks.
IAF warplanes destroyed a weapons factory and a smuggler tunnel in the southern section of Gaza, according to the IDF Spokesman. Direct hits were identified on both targets.
Mid-morning Wednesday, the Color Red air raid alert siren was activated in Ashkelon, as well as in a number of communities in the Sha'ar HaNegev Regional Council district, near the Gaza border. Officials later said the alert was sounded in error and no rocket attack had been aimed at the communities.
"The IDF holds the Hamas terrorist organization solely responsible for maintaining the calm in the Gaza Strip and for any terrorist activity emanating from it. The IDF will also continue to respond harshly to any attempt to use terror against the State of Israel," said the IDF Spokesman in a state
Three short-range rockets were fired from Gaza at southern Israeli towns, although there were no reports of casualties or damage in any of the attacks.
IAF warplanes destroyed a weapons factory and a smuggler tunnel in the southern section of Gaza, according to the IDF Spokesman. Direct hits were identified on both targets.
Mid-morning Wednesday, the Color Red air raid alert siren was activated in Ashkelon, as well as in a number of communities in the Sha'ar HaNegev Regional Council district, near the Gaza border. Officials later said the alert was sounded in error and no rocket attack had been aimed at the communities.
"The IDF holds the Hamas terrorist organization solely responsible for maintaining the calm in the Gaza Strip and for any terrorist activity emanating from it. The IDF will also continue to respond harshly to any attempt to use terror against the State of Israel," said the IDF Spokesman in a state
20 Incredible TED Talks for Math Geeks
December 8th, 2010
For some, math education, whether it's in grade school or on the path to getting a bachelor's degree, is just plain dull. Yet math geeks know that the subject can be fascinating, beautiful and even awe-inspiring when it's presented in the right way. These lecturers know how to do just that, making everything from fractals to physics fun, interesting and just plain entertaining to learn to about, whether you're a math geek or a math hater.
1.Arthur Benjamin's formula for changing math education: Whether you always knew you wanted to focus on a career in math, or were one of those students wondering where the heck you would ever use your newly-cultivated knowledge in real life, this lecture will speak to you. Benjamin offers up new, practical ways to make math education relevant in today's society.
2.Margaret Wertheim on the beautiful math of coral: If you've ever marveled at the beauty and complexity of the coral reef, you'll enjoy this talk from Margaret Wertheim. In it, she showcases not only the geometry behind coral reef creation, but her own unique crocheting technique that allowed her to replicate those designs in textiles.
3.Bruce Bueno de Mesquita predicts Iran's future: Can math predict the future? While there is always an element of uncertainty, in this lecture you'll see how math has been used to correctly predict events like war and political power shifts – and what it says for the future of Iran.
4.Robert Lang folds way-new origami: We've all seen the simple swans or fortune tellers that we folded as kids, but few have ever seen origami as complex as this. Robert Lang showcases his origami methods in this lecture that combine math and engineering to create objects that are truly awe-inspiring.
5.Benoit Mandelbrot: Fractals and the art of roughness: If you know a thing or two about fractals, you're bound to know the name Mandelbrot. In this lecture, this legendary mathematician explains the essentials of fractal math and what these complex structures can tell us about nature and humankind.
6.Dan Meyer: Math class needs a makeover: In this talk, education expert Dan Meyer explains what's wrong with math education today and why it should focus less on teaching kids to solve problems and more on how to formulate ones of their own.
7.Conrad Wolfram: Teaching kids real math with computers: Even if you loved math class, you probably agree that it could use a makeover to reflect modern technology and applications. Here, Conrad Wolfram explains why math is so boring to so many students and what can be done to change it.
8.Arthur Benjamin does "Mathemagic": You'll love watching mathemagician Arthur Benjamin race against calculators to figure out three-digit squares, solve massive equations and even guess audience member birthdays. Best of all, he'll explain how you can do it too.
9.Sean Gourley on the mathematics of war: War may not be as random as one might think. In this lecture, you'll see how analysis of wartime statistics reveals some interesting correlations between fatalities and frequency of attacks.
10.Steven Strogatz on Sync: Ever wonder how birds, fish and insects manage to work, move and survive together in such large groups? Take a look at this lecture where mathematician Steven Strogatz explains the phenomenon of sync and what it means for both the natural and unnatural worlds.
11.Marcus du Sautoy: Symmetry, reality's riddle: There are many things both in the natural world and in the manmade one that rely on symmetry. It's virtually everywhere you look, but we often don't see all that's really behind it. In this lecture, you'll get a chance to understand the numbers that bring these symmetrical objects together.
12.Ron Eglash on African fractals: In this engaging lecture, you'll learn about the research mathematician Ron Eglash has done on fractal patterns that show up in African villages and architecture.
13.Demo: Stunning data visualization in the AlloSphere: Numbers themselves can sometimes seem a bit boring, and it can be hard to understand what they really mean. This demonstration of the AlloSphere helps bring data to life in a stunning way.
14.Evan Grant: Making sound visible through cymatics: We can hear sounds well enough, but can rarely see them. This lecture turns that on its head, talking about cymatics, the process by which sound waves are made visible. You'll not only find the math compelling but the designs these sound waves create beautiful.
15.Greg Lynn on calculus in architecture: Think calculus has no place in architecture? Architect Greg Lynn would beg to differ and shares how using calculus and digital tools lets architects create new building forms and amazing structures.
16.Peter Donnelly shows how stats fool juries: Oxford mathematician Peter Donnelly explains how human beings are so often fooled by numbers, especially statistics. For example, these errors hold the potential to impact the lives of all those involved in a trial — perhaps for the worse.
17.Gary Wolf: The quantified self: Can't get enough of numbers? This lecture from Gary Wolf shows how mobile apps and gadgets can help you track just about every number about yourself and your life in infinite detail.
18.Stephen Wolfram: Computing a theory of everything: The creator of Mathematica and the Wolfram behind Wolfram Alpha, Stephen Wolfram knows a thing or two about using computers for math. Here, he shows how the abilities of computers to analyze, collect and organize data can help us unravel the mysteries of our own world and the universe beyond.
19.Alan Kay shares a powerful idea about ideas: Learn how computers can be amazing tools when it comes to teaching kids about science and math, demonstrating concepts in ways that no other things can.
20.Dan Cobley: What physics taught me about marketing: Physics and marketing may make strange bedfellows but that didn't stop Google marketing director Dan Cobley from bringing them together. In this lecture, he shares how he applied what he learn in physics to his own ideas on branding.
For some, math education, whether it's in grade school or on the path to getting a bachelor's degree, is just plain dull. Yet math geeks know that the subject can be fascinating, beautiful and even awe-inspiring when it's presented in the right way. These lecturers know how to do just that, making everything from fractals to physics fun, interesting and just plain entertaining to learn to about, whether you're a math geek or a math hater.
1.Arthur Benjamin's formula for changing math education: Whether you always knew you wanted to focus on a career in math, or were one of those students wondering where the heck you would ever use your newly-cultivated knowledge in real life, this lecture will speak to you. Benjamin offers up new, practical ways to make math education relevant in today's society.
2.Margaret Wertheim on the beautiful math of coral: If you've ever marveled at the beauty and complexity of the coral reef, you'll enjoy this talk from Margaret Wertheim. In it, she showcases not only the geometry behind coral reef creation, but her own unique crocheting technique that allowed her to replicate those designs in textiles.
3.Bruce Bueno de Mesquita predicts Iran's future: Can math predict the future? While there is always an element of uncertainty, in this lecture you'll see how math has been used to correctly predict events like war and political power shifts – and what it says for the future of Iran.
4.Robert Lang folds way-new origami: We've all seen the simple swans or fortune tellers that we folded as kids, but few have ever seen origami as complex as this. Robert Lang showcases his origami methods in this lecture that combine math and engineering to create objects that are truly awe-inspiring.
5.Benoit Mandelbrot: Fractals and the art of roughness: If you know a thing or two about fractals, you're bound to know the name Mandelbrot. In this lecture, this legendary mathematician explains the essentials of fractal math and what these complex structures can tell us about nature and humankind.
6.Dan Meyer: Math class needs a makeover: In this talk, education expert Dan Meyer explains what's wrong with math education today and why it should focus less on teaching kids to solve problems and more on how to formulate ones of their own.
7.Conrad Wolfram: Teaching kids real math with computers: Even if you loved math class, you probably agree that it could use a makeover to reflect modern technology and applications. Here, Conrad Wolfram explains why math is so boring to so many students and what can be done to change it.
8.Arthur Benjamin does "Mathemagic": You'll love watching mathemagician Arthur Benjamin race against calculators to figure out three-digit squares, solve massive equations and even guess audience member birthdays. Best of all, he'll explain how you can do it too.
9.Sean Gourley on the mathematics of war: War may not be as random as one might think. In this lecture, you'll see how analysis of wartime statistics reveals some interesting correlations between fatalities and frequency of attacks.
10.Steven Strogatz on Sync: Ever wonder how birds, fish and insects manage to work, move and survive together in such large groups? Take a look at this lecture where mathematician Steven Strogatz explains the phenomenon of sync and what it means for both the natural and unnatural worlds.
11.Marcus du Sautoy: Symmetry, reality's riddle: There are many things both in the natural world and in the manmade one that rely on symmetry. It's virtually everywhere you look, but we often don't see all that's really behind it. In this lecture, you'll get a chance to understand the numbers that bring these symmetrical objects together.
12.Ron Eglash on African fractals: In this engaging lecture, you'll learn about the research mathematician Ron Eglash has done on fractal patterns that show up in African villages and architecture.
13.Demo: Stunning data visualization in the AlloSphere: Numbers themselves can sometimes seem a bit boring, and it can be hard to understand what they really mean. This demonstration of the AlloSphere helps bring data to life in a stunning way.
14.Evan Grant: Making sound visible through cymatics: We can hear sounds well enough, but can rarely see them. This lecture turns that on its head, talking about cymatics, the process by which sound waves are made visible. You'll not only find the math compelling but the designs these sound waves create beautiful.
15.Greg Lynn on calculus in architecture: Think calculus has no place in architecture? Architect Greg Lynn would beg to differ and shares how using calculus and digital tools lets architects create new building forms and amazing structures.
16.Peter Donnelly shows how stats fool juries: Oxford mathematician Peter Donnelly explains how human beings are so often fooled by numbers, especially statistics. For example, these errors hold the potential to impact the lives of all those involved in a trial — perhaps for the worse.
17.Gary Wolf: The quantified self: Can't get enough of numbers? This lecture from Gary Wolf shows how mobile apps and gadgets can help you track just about every number about yourself and your life in infinite detail.
18.Stephen Wolfram: Computing a theory of everything: The creator of Mathematica and the Wolfram behind Wolfram Alpha, Stephen Wolfram knows a thing or two about using computers for math. Here, he shows how the abilities of computers to analyze, collect and organize data can help us unravel the mysteries of our own world and the universe beyond.
19.Alan Kay shares a powerful idea about ideas: Learn how computers can be amazing tools when it comes to teaching kids about science and math, demonstrating concepts in ways that no other things can.
20.Dan Cobley: What physics taught me about marketing: Physics and marketing may make strange bedfellows but that didn't stop Google marketing director Dan Cobley from bringing them together. In this lecture, he shares how he applied what he learn in physics to his own ideas on branding.
Τετάρτη 8 Δεκεμβρίου 2010
Η πρόεδρος του κινήματος «Δημοκρατική Συμμαχία» Ντόρα Μπακογιάννη μίλησε σήμερα στην Επιτροπή Οικονομικών Υποθέσεων για τον προϋπολογισμό.
Ακολουθεί η ομιλία της Ντόρας Μπακογιάννη:
«Κυρίες και κύριοι συνάδελφοι,
Ο προϋπολογισμός του 2011 είναι ο κρισιμότερος που έχουμε ποτέ συζητήσει στην αίθουσα αυτή, τουλάχιστον μετά την μεταπολίτευση. Από την εκτέλεσή του θα κριθούν μέσα στις επόμενους μήνες τρεις κρίσιμες προκλήσεις: η αποφυγή της χρεοκοπίας, η πιθανότητα επανόδου της χώρας στις διεθνείς αγορές και η επανεκκίνηση της αναπτυξιακής διαδικασίας που είναι το μεγάλο ζητούμενο για να υπάρξουν επενδύσεις και νέες δουλειές στον τόπο.
Από τα στοιχεία που περιλαμβάνει το κείμενο που κατατέθηκε στη Βουλή ο απολογισμός του 2009 και οι εκτιμήσεις πραγματοποίησης του 2010, αντανακλούν τις τεράστιες αδυναμίες του πολιτικού μας συστήματος.
Ο προϋπολογισμός του 2010 που συζητήσαμε το τέλος του 2009 αποδείχθηκε ότι δεν είχε σχέση με την πραγματικότητα. Ήταν προϊόν της σύγκρουσης του προεκλογικού προγράμματος του ΠΑΣΟΚ, της εποχής «υπάρχουν λεφτά», με την αδήριτη πραγματικότητα. Ήταν ένας προϋπολογισμός με διάρκεια ζωής λίγων μόλις εβδομάδων και κατέληξε στα δραματικά γεγονότα του μνημονίου. Με δεδομένο ότι η σημερινή τραγική δημοσιονομική κατάσταση της χώρας αποτελεί το αποτέλεσμα μιας μακράς καταστροφικής πορείας τριάντα χρόνων , η συζήτηση για τις ευθύνες δεν μπορεί να περιοριστεί στο πλαίσιο δύο μόλις προϋπολογισμών. Ταυτόχρονα η κρισιμότητα των περιστάσεων και η ανάγκη επίτευξης μιας στοιχειώδους εθνικής συνεννόησης, για να επιτύχουμε τους στόχους του προϋπολογισμού, απαιτούν από όλους μας να συνεισφέρουμε στη συζήτηση με τρόπο θετικό και με μοναδικό κριτήριο την έκτακτη εθνική ανάγκη στην οποία βρισκόμαστε.
Με το πνεύμα αυτό θα ξεκινήσω από τις αδυναμίες στην εκτέλεση του προϋπολογισμού του 2010 και θα συνεχίσω με τους σοβαρούς κινδύνους του προϋπολογισμού του 2011.
Βασική αδυναμία του προϋπολογισμού του 2010 ήταν η προσπάθεια να μειωθεί το έλλειμμα με μια τεράστια αύξηση των φορολογικών συντελεστών. Επιλογή της κυβέρνησης του ΠΑΣΟΚ η οποία αποφασίστηκε πριν προκύψει η συμφωνία για τη δανειακή σύμβαση με την Ευρώπη. Επιλογή της κυβέρνησης του ΠΑΣΟΚ που δεν οδήγησε σε αντίστοιχη αύξηση εσόδων. Αντιθέτως δημιούργησε ασφυκτικές συνθήκες στον ιδιωτικό τομέα. Το αποτέλεσμα το καταγράφουν όλοι οι δείκτες: Οι επιχειρήσεις και οι μικρομεσαίοι ασφυκτιούν. Η ανεργία διογκώνεται.
Το πρόβλημα της πολιτικής της κυβέρνησης δεν ήταν μόνο, ότι ο φοροεισπρακτικός μηχανισμός, δεν λειτούργησε αποτελεσματικά και τα έσοδα που προέβλεψε δεν ήρθαν. Πιο σημαντικό ήταν ότι στην ουσία απέτυχε και ο όποιος σχεδιασμός για τις δαπάνες. Η κυβέρνηση ακολούθησε τον εύκολο δρόμο. Έκοψε τις δαπάνες οριζόντια και αδιακρίτως, αλλά σε πολλούς τομείς -κυρίως στην υγεία και τις ΔΕΚΟ, αλλά και σε ό,τι αφορά πολλές πολιτικές δαπάνες- η κακή διαχείριση και οι σπατάλες έμειναν σε μεγάλο βαθμό ανέγγιχτες.
Μικρό αλλά χαρακτηριστικό δείγμα, η ίδια η Βουλή, που ξόδεψε ακριβώς όσα και το 2009, 218 εκ. Ευρώ , υπερβαίνοντας κατά 17 εκ. ευρώ την πρόβλεψη του μνημονίου. Αυτά τα 17 εκ. είναι λίγα θα ήταν όμως 2% επιπλέον αύξηση στο ΕΚΑΣ φέτος, το οποίο μειώθηκε το 2010 κατά 145 εκ. Είναι μικρό το ύψος της δαπάνης, δείχνει όμως ανάγλυφα την άρνηση του πολιτικού μας συστήματος να αποδεχθεί την νέα πραγματικότητα.
Δεύτερο χαρακτηριστικό παράδειγμα η αναφορά στην εισηγητική έκθεση ότι για τις κυριότερες ΔΕΚΟ (Μετρό, ΕΘΕΛ, ΗΣΑΠ, ΗΛΠΑΠ, ΤΡΑΜ ΑΕ, ΕΛΓΑ, Ελληνικά Αμυντικά Συστήματα, ΟΣΕ, ΤΡΑΙΝΟΣΕ, ΕΡΤ, ΚΕΕΛΠΝΟ, ΕΟΤ, Κοινωνία της Πληροφορίας), το υπουργείο Οικονομικών «δεν κατέστη δυνατό» να έχει «αξιόπιστα οικονομικά στοιχεία», με την μη σοβαρή δικαιολογία της πρόσφατης αναταξινόμησης τους στους φορείς γενικής κυβέρνησης. Είναι αδιανόητο 14 μήνες μετά την ανάληψη της κυβέρνησης το Υπουργείο Οικονομικών να μας δηλώνει ότι δεν ξέρει τι συμβαίνει στις ΔΕΚΟ.
Τρίτο χαρακτηριστικό παράδειγμα η απελπιστική περίπτωση του ΟΣΕ. Την ώρα που η κυβέρνηση στην ουσία έχει κηρύξει στάση πληρωμών για όλους όσους συναλλάσσονται με το δημόσιο, είτε αυτοί διεκδικούν αποπληρωμή για έργα και προμήθειες, είτε επιστροφή ΦΠΑ από εξαγωγές, στεγνώνοντας την αγορά και τις επιχειρήσεις από ρευστότητα, το δημόσιο δανείζεται για να πληρώσει τα υπέρογκα ημερήσια ελλείμματα του ΟΣΕ.
Είναι φανερό ότι η κυβέρνηση είναι παγιδευμένη στις εσωτερικές της αντιφάσεις. Η πλειοψηφία των υπουργών ταλαντεύεται μεταξύ αναποτελεσματικότητας και άρνησης της πραγματικότητας.
Βασική αδυναμία του προϋπολογισμού του 2011 είναι η προβλεπόμενη πολύ μικρή βελτίωση του ελλείμματος του τακτικού προϋπολογισμού, μόλις 0,8% του ΑΕΠ. Πρόβλεψη η οποία στηρίζεται κατά κύριο λόγο σε αβέβαια και μη επαναλαμβανόμενα έσοδα, από τυχερά παιχνίδια, φορολογικά πρόστιμα, άδειες συχνοτήτων, επιτάχυνση επίλυσης φορολογικών διαφορών κ.λπ..
Κύριοι της κυβέρνησης προσπαθείτε να δημιουργήσετε μια εικονική πραγματικότητα. Στην οποία όμως ούτε εσείς οι ίδιοι πιστεύετε.
Απόδειξη της προχειρότητας με την οποία αντιμετωπίζετε το θέμα των δαπανών είναι το γεγονός ότι εδώ και 14 μήνες δεν έχουν δημιουργηθεί οι υποδομές μηχανοργάνωσης, ούτε έχουν επιλεγεί οι κατάλληλες διοικήσεις στα ταμεία και τα Νοσοκομεία για να μπορούμε βάσιμα να ελπίζουμε ότι θα επιτευχθεί η εξοικονόμηση στις δαπάνες υγείας κατά 2,1 δις. Εξοικονόμηση που θα μπορούσε να φτάσει ακόμα και τα 4 δις σε όλες τις δαπάνες υγείας αν υπάρξουν οι κατάλληλες προϋποθέσεις έτσι ώστε να μην ελεγχθούν μόνο οι τιμές αλλά και ο όγκος της προκλητικής ζήτησης ιατρικών πράξεων. Η υπερβολική και μη αναγκαία χρήση φαρμάκων, ιατρικών αναλωσίμων, εξετάσεων κ.λπ.
Υπάρχουν και άλλα αρκετά σημεία πιθανής αποτυχίας στα έσοδα και τις δαπάνες, που αθροιζόμενα μπορεί να μας φέρουν την καταστροφή. Αβεβαιότητες όπως τα 500 εκ. εξοικονόμησης από τον Καλλικράτη, οι υπεραισιόδοξες αυξήσεις εσόδων στις ΔΕΚΟ (π.χ. προβλέπεται διπλασιασμός εσόδων στον ΟΔΙΕ, στην ΕΘΕΛ και στον ΗΣΑΠ με πάνω από 300 εκ. επιπλέον έσοδα), η ανεξήγητη στην εισηγητική έκθεση αύξηση της προβλεπόμενης απόδοσης των τεκμηρίων από τα 400 στα 700 εκ. Ευρώ (μεταξύ μνημονίου και προϋπολογισμού). Επίσης ελλοχεύουν κίνδυνοι που αφορούν μεγάλο μέρος των φορολογικών εσόδων λόγω της αβεβαιότητας σε σχέση με την πραγματική έκταση την οποία θα έχει τελικά η ύφεση και η φοροδοτική ικανότητα της αγοράς, καθώς θα κλείνει λόγω έλλειψης ρευστότητας και προοπτικής μεγάλος αριθμός επιχειρήσεων.
Το σοβαρότερο πρόβλημα όμως είναι η έκταση και το είδος της προσαρμογής που επιχειρείται το 2011. Σε επίπεδο Γενικής Κυβέρνησης, που περιλαμβάνει και απεικονίζει τα πάντα, το 2011 επιχειρείται μια προσαρμογή 2,1% του ΑΕΠ, εκ των οποίων 1,6% στα έσοδα (κυρίως με έκτακτα έσοδα) και 0,5% στις δαπάνες. Σχέση προσαρμογής που λειτουργεί εις βάρος του ιδιωτικού και παραγωγικού τομέα της οικονομίας. Όπως είναι λάθος η προσπάθεια προσαρμογής να οδηγήσει σε μια γραμμική και ανεξέλεγκτη μείωση των μισθών των εργαζομένων στον ιδιωτικό τομέα. Το πρόβλημα της ανταγωνιστικότητας δεν είναι το ύψος δαπάνης της μισθωτής εργασίας στον ιδιωτικό τομέα, αλλά τα προβλήματα που δημιουργεί το κράτος και η παρεμβατικότητα του στην επιχειρηματικότητα και στην αναπτυξιακή διαδικασία.
Η δική μας θέση είναι ότι η σχέση προσαρμογής θα έπρεπε να είναι ακριβώς αντίθετη: Να δίνει πολύ μεγαλύτερο βάρος στις δαπάνες και όχι στα έσοδα. Η καθυστέρηση προσαρμογής στις ΔΕΚΟ και σε πολλά σημεία του κεντρικού κράτους, όπου βρίσκονται τα σπλάχνα της σημερινής κυβέρνησης, αλλά και γενικότερα του κομματικού συστήματος, κλείνει χιλιάδες επιχειρήσεις και καταστρέφει πολλές δεκάδες χιλιάδες θέσεις εργασίας στον ιδιωτικό τομέα. Θέσεις παραγωγικές επιχειρηματιών και εργαζομένων που παράγουν και δημιουργούν πλούτο. Εκεί όμως βρίσκονται τα παιδιά ενός κατώτερου θεού, κατά το κομματικό μας σύστημα. Εκεί μπορεί οι άνθρωποι να απολύονται χωρίς διαδηλώσεις, χωρίς απεργίες, χωρίς να χάνουν τον ύπνο τους οι κομματάρχες, που δεν τους διόρισαν και οι συνδικαλιστικοί φορείς που δεν τους εκπροσωπούν. Αυτό δεν είναι πλέον ανεκτό.
Ο μεγαλύτερος εντούτοις κίνδυνος για την χώρα βρίσκεται σε αυτά που δεν περιλαμβάνει ο σημερινός προϋπολογισμός. Στην ξεχασμένη υποσημείωση του μνημονίου, σύμφωνα με την οποία το 2012, 2013 και 2014, θα πρέπει να γίνει πρόσθετη μη προσδιορισμένη σήμερα μείωση του ελλείμματος ύψους 11 δις ευρώ. Η καθυστερημένη αυτή προσαρμογή, σε συνδυασμό με την αλματώδη αύξηση του χρέους, καθώς τα ελλείμματα μειώνονται βραδύτερα και με μεγαλύτερο κόστος για τον ιδιωτικό τομέα, είναι αυτή που εμποδίζει ακόμα και την σκέψη έστω για πρόσβαση στις αγορές. Με spread στις 900 μονάδες βάσης δεν υπάρχει φως στον ορίζοντα. Για αυτό και εμείς μιλάμε για ανάγκη σαρωτικών διαρθρωτικών αλλαγών άμεσα σε όλα τα επίπεδα.
Κεντρική αλλαγή ο περιορισμός της έκτασης του δημοσίου τομέα, με ευρύτερη συμφωνία των πολιτικών δυνάμεων, κατά το 1/3 στην επόμενη δεκαετία, με μαζικές αποκρατικοποιήσεις και μεταφορά δραστηριοτήτων στον ιδιωτικό τομέα. Για αυτό και μιλάμε για κατάργηση της μονιμότητας των νεοπροσλαμβανόμενων υπαλλήλων, για εφαρμογή ενός ενιαίου φορολογικού συντελεστή της τάξεως του 20% στις επιχειρήσεις το ταχύτερο δυνατόν, για μαζική και αποφασιστική άρση των εμποδίων στην επιχειρηματικότητα. Για αυτό και ζητάμε δραστική αλλαγή συνδικαλιστικού μοντέλου με συνδικαλιστές που να εργάζονται και οικειοθελή κατάργηση των κομματικών παρατάξεων στα συνδικάτα και τα πανεπιστήμια.
Ζητούμε δραστικότερες, σαρωτικές αλλαγές και για ένα ακόμα λόγο. Γιατί το τεράστιο ύψος του χρέους και η καθυστέρηση κανονικής πρόσβασης στις αγορές, μπορούν σε περίπτωση αύξησης των διεθνών επιτοκίων, που βρίσκονται σήμερα σε ιστορικό χαμηλό, να τινάξουν οποιαδήποτε προσπάθεια ανάκαμψης στον αέρα. Και δεν αναφέρομαι εδώ μόνο στο δημόσιο, αλλά και στο ιδιωτικό χρέος.
Ταχύτερες αλλαγές θα μας επιτρέψουν επίσης να αποκτήσουμε ξανά αξιόπιστη φωνή στο εσωτερικό της Ένωσης, όπου τα πράγματα δεν πηγαίνουν καθόλου καλά. Η Ελλάδα μπορεί κινούμενη ταχύτερα κατ' εξοχήν να συνεισφέρει στη βιωσιμότητα της ευρωζώνης και να συμμαχήσει έτσι περισσότερο αξιόπιστα με όσους ζητούν από την Ευρωπαϊκή Κεντρική Τράπεζα, μια κάπως χαλαρότερη νομισματική πολιτική, που θα μας διευκόλυνε να αποκαταστήσουμε την ανταγωνιστικότητά μας, όπως και την ανταγωνιστικότητα των άλλων χωρών του νότου. Ο διάλογος αυτός -κυρίως με τους Γερμανούς- πρέπει να ανοίξει, αν θέλουμε η ευρωζώνη να αποφύγει τα χειρότερα. Και στο πνεύμα του ευρωπαϊκού συμβιβασμού, ο νότος να προσφέρει περισσότερη δημοσιονομική πειθαρχία και βαθιές διαρθρωτικές αλλαγές και ο βοράς ένα φθηνότερο ευρώ.
Χρειαζόμαστε όμως σαρωτικές διαρθρωτικές αλλαγές και για έναν ακόμα λόγο. Γιατί δεν είναι δυνατόν να βιώνεται η κρίση αυτή χωρίς ένα ανεκτό δίκτυ προστασίας για τους πραγματικά κοινωνικά αδυνάτους. Γνωρίζοντας πολύ καλά την δημοσιονομική πραγματικότητα, αλλά και την εικόνα που έχει ο μέσος πολίτης για το πολιτικό σύστημα προτείνω μια πολύ συγκεκριμένη κοινωνική δαπάνη, με συμβολικό αλλά και ουσιαστικό χαρακτήρα. Την αύξηση του ΕΚΑΣ κατά 150 εκ. Ευρώ. Θυμίζω ότι το 2010 μειώθηκε κατά 145 εκ Ευρώ. Αυτά τα 150 εκ. Ευρώ, για τους συνταξιούχους μπορούμε να τα εξασφαλίσουμε με συγκεκριμένες περικοπές. Με περικοπές από το κονδύλι της Βουλής (10 εκ.), το κονδύλι για τα κόμματα (με μείωση από τα 75 στα 55 εκ.), αυξημένο τέλος αλληλεγγύης στις μεγάλες συντάξεις πολιτικού χαρακτήρα για τις οποίες δεν έχουν πληρωθεί αντίστοιχες εισφορές (συντάξεις βουλευτών, ευρωβουλευτών, Γενικών Γραμματέων Υπουργείων, Διοικητών Οργανισμών και Τραπεζών κ.λπ. με απόδοση 10 εκ. ευρώ), και από την μεταφορά 100 εκ. από τον πόρο που πληρώνεται για την ΕΡΤ στον τακτικό προϋπολογισμό, με αντίστοιχες περικοπές στον αριθμό των κρατικών σταθμών. Είναι συγκεκριμένη πρόταση σαφής, και θα βοηθούσε και τους ανθρώπους που έχουν πράγματι ανάγκη αλλά και την αποκατάσταση της αξιοπιστίας του πολιτικού μας συστήματος.
Πριν ολοκληρώσω θα ήθελα να κάνω μια σύντομη αναφορά στην τοποθέτηση της αξιωματικής αντιπολίτευσης. Βλέπω με ικανοποίηση ότι οι αντιμνημονιακοί τόνοι έχουν πέσει και ο μηδενισμός του ελλείμματος έχει αποσυρθεί στα ενδότερα της Ρηγίλλης και απ' ότι κατάλαβα θα ξεχαστεί εκεί σε κάποιο ντουλάπι εν όψει της μετακόμισης στη Συγγρού.
Λογικό είναι. Μεσολάβησε άλλωστε η ψυχρολουσία του αποτυχόντος αντιμνημονιακού μετώπου στις πρόσφατες εκλογές, η αμηχανία στην τελευταία σύνοδο του Ευρωπαϊκού Λαϊκού Κόμματος και τα στοιχεία της Eurostat που δείχνουν έλλειμμα 15,4% το 2009 και όχι 9,9% όπως ισχυριζόταν ο κ. Σαμαράς για να στηρίξει επί αυτού του 9,9% όλη την θεωρία του περί μηδενισμού.
Δυστυχώς όμως ενώ οι τόνοι έπεσαν η ουσία παραμένει. Η αξιωματική αντιπολίτευση δεν έχει αξιόπιστη οικονομική πρόταση. Και αυτό είναι και αποσταθεροποιητικό και επικίνδυνο για την συνολική πορεία της προσαρμογής. Ελπίζω η δική μας παρουσία και η πίεση την οποία ασκούμε, η οποία ήδη άρχισε να μετακινεί κάποιους ανθρώπους, θα οδηγήσει σε εγκατάλειψη του ακραίου λαϊκισμού που χαρακτήρισε τον πολιτικό λόγο της αξιωματικής αντιπολίτευσης στη διάρκεια των τελευταίων μηνών. Εμείς πάντως προτιμούμε να ανταγωνιζόμαστε με τις άλλες πολιτικές δυνάμεις σε θετικές προτάσεις και ιδέες και να μην χρειαζόμαστε να καταγγέλλουμε ανεδαφικές και επιζήμιες πρακτικές.
Κυρίες και κύριοι συνάδελφοι,
Τα χρόνια που έρχονται είναι δύσκολα. Η σχέση πολιτικής και εξουσίας αλλάζει. Η εξουσία από έπαθλο και λάφυρο μετατρέπεται σε βάρος και ευθύνη για δύσκολες και επώδυνες αποφάσεις. Για να ανταποκριθούμε στη νέα πραγματικότητα πρέπει να αλλάξουμε νοοτροπία, λογική και πρακτικές. Να βρούμε δρόμους σύγκλισης και συνεννόησης. Να αναλάβουμε το κόστος να αποκαταστήσουμε τη ζημιά που έχει γίνει. Εμείς ως νέος πολιτικός χώρος για αυτό θα αγωνιστούμε. Και ελπίζω ότι θα λειτουργήσουμε ως καταλύτης για να προχωρήσουν πιο γρήγορα οι μεγάλες αλλαγές που έχει ανάγκη ο τόπος.
«Κυρίες και κύριοι συνάδελφοι,
Ο προϋπολογισμός του 2011 είναι ο κρισιμότερος που έχουμε ποτέ συζητήσει στην αίθουσα αυτή, τουλάχιστον μετά την μεταπολίτευση. Από την εκτέλεσή του θα κριθούν μέσα στις επόμενους μήνες τρεις κρίσιμες προκλήσεις: η αποφυγή της χρεοκοπίας, η πιθανότητα επανόδου της χώρας στις διεθνείς αγορές και η επανεκκίνηση της αναπτυξιακής διαδικασίας που είναι το μεγάλο ζητούμενο για να υπάρξουν επενδύσεις και νέες δουλειές στον τόπο.
Από τα στοιχεία που περιλαμβάνει το κείμενο που κατατέθηκε στη Βουλή ο απολογισμός του 2009 και οι εκτιμήσεις πραγματοποίησης του 2010, αντανακλούν τις τεράστιες αδυναμίες του πολιτικού μας συστήματος.
Ο προϋπολογισμός του 2010 που συζητήσαμε το τέλος του 2009 αποδείχθηκε ότι δεν είχε σχέση με την πραγματικότητα. Ήταν προϊόν της σύγκρουσης του προεκλογικού προγράμματος του ΠΑΣΟΚ, της εποχής «υπάρχουν λεφτά», με την αδήριτη πραγματικότητα. Ήταν ένας προϋπολογισμός με διάρκεια ζωής λίγων μόλις εβδομάδων και κατέληξε στα δραματικά γεγονότα του μνημονίου. Με δεδομένο ότι η σημερινή τραγική δημοσιονομική κατάσταση της χώρας αποτελεί το αποτέλεσμα μιας μακράς καταστροφικής πορείας τριάντα χρόνων , η συζήτηση για τις ευθύνες δεν μπορεί να περιοριστεί στο πλαίσιο δύο μόλις προϋπολογισμών. Ταυτόχρονα η κρισιμότητα των περιστάσεων και η ανάγκη επίτευξης μιας στοιχειώδους εθνικής συνεννόησης, για να επιτύχουμε τους στόχους του προϋπολογισμού, απαιτούν από όλους μας να συνεισφέρουμε στη συζήτηση με τρόπο θετικό και με μοναδικό κριτήριο την έκτακτη εθνική ανάγκη στην οποία βρισκόμαστε.
Με το πνεύμα αυτό θα ξεκινήσω από τις αδυναμίες στην εκτέλεση του προϋπολογισμού του 2010 και θα συνεχίσω με τους σοβαρούς κινδύνους του προϋπολογισμού του 2011.
Βασική αδυναμία του προϋπολογισμού του 2010 ήταν η προσπάθεια να μειωθεί το έλλειμμα με μια τεράστια αύξηση των φορολογικών συντελεστών. Επιλογή της κυβέρνησης του ΠΑΣΟΚ η οποία αποφασίστηκε πριν προκύψει η συμφωνία για τη δανειακή σύμβαση με την Ευρώπη. Επιλογή της κυβέρνησης του ΠΑΣΟΚ που δεν οδήγησε σε αντίστοιχη αύξηση εσόδων. Αντιθέτως δημιούργησε ασφυκτικές συνθήκες στον ιδιωτικό τομέα. Το αποτέλεσμα το καταγράφουν όλοι οι δείκτες: Οι επιχειρήσεις και οι μικρομεσαίοι ασφυκτιούν. Η ανεργία διογκώνεται.
Το πρόβλημα της πολιτικής της κυβέρνησης δεν ήταν μόνο, ότι ο φοροεισπρακτικός μηχανισμός, δεν λειτούργησε αποτελεσματικά και τα έσοδα που προέβλεψε δεν ήρθαν. Πιο σημαντικό ήταν ότι στην ουσία απέτυχε και ο όποιος σχεδιασμός για τις δαπάνες. Η κυβέρνηση ακολούθησε τον εύκολο δρόμο. Έκοψε τις δαπάνες οριζόντια και αδιακρίτως, αλλά σε πολλούς τομείς -κυρίως στην υγεία και τις ΔΕΚΟ, αλλά και σε ό,τι αφορά πολλές πολιτικές δαπάνες- η κακή διαχείριση και οι σπατάλες έμειναν σε μεγάλο βαθμό ανέγγιχτες.
Μικρό αλλά χαρακτηριστικό δείγμα, η ίδια η Βουλή, που ξόδεψε ακριβώς όσα και το 2009, 218 εκ. Ευρώ , υπερβαίνοντας κατά 17 εκ. ευρώ την πρόβλεψη του μνημονίου. Αυτά τα 17 εκ. είναι λίγα θα ήταν όμως 2% επιπλέον αύξηση στο ΕΚΑΣ φέτος, το οποίο μειώθηκε το 2010 κατά 145 εκ. Είναι μικρό το ύψος της δαπάνης, δείχνει όμως ανάγλυφα την άρνηση του πολιτικού μας συστήματος να αποδεχθεί την νέα πραγματικότητα.
Δεύτερο χαρακτηριστικό παράδειγμα η αναφορά στην εισηγητική έκθεση ότι για τις κυριότερες ΔΕΚΟ (Μετρό, ΕΘΕΛ, ΗΣΑΠ, ΗΛΠΑΠ, ΤΡΑΜ ΑΕ, ΕΛΓΑ, Ελληνικά Αμυντικά Συστήματα, ΟΣΕ, ΤΡΑΙΝΟΣΕ, ΕΡΤ, ΚΕΕΛΠΝΟ, ΕΟΤ, Κοινωνία της Πληροφορίας), το υπουργείο Οικονομικών «δεν κατέστη δυνατό» να έχει «αξιόπιστα οικονομικά στοιχεία», με την μη σοβαρή δικαιολογία της πρόσφατης αναταξινόμησης τους στους φορείς γενικής κυβέρνησης. Είναι αδιανόητο 14 μήνες μετά την ανάληψη της κυβέρνησης το Υπουργείο Οικονομικών να μας δηλώνει ότι δεν ξέρει τι συμβαίνει στις ΔΕΚΟ.
Τρίτο χαρακτηριστικό παράδειγμα η απελπιστική περίπτωση του ΟΣΕ. Την ώρα που η κυβέρνηση στην ουσία έχει κηρύξει στάση πληρωμών για όλους όσους συναλλάσσονται με το δημόσιο, είτε αυτοί διεκδικούν αποπληρωμή για έργα και προμήθειες, είτε επιστροφή ΦΠΑ από εξαγωγές, στεγνώνοντας την αγορά και τις επιχειρήσεις από ρευστότητα, το δημόσιο δανείζεται για να πληρώσει τα υπέρογκα ημερήσια ελλείμματα του ΟΣΕ.
Είναι φανερό ότι η κυβέρνηση είναι παγιδευμένη στις εσωτερικές της αντιφάσεις. Η πλειοψηφία των υπουργών ταλαντεύεται μεταξύ αναποτελεσματικότητας και άρνησης της πραγματικότητας.
Βασική αδυναμία του προϋπολογισμού του 2011 είναι η προβλεπόμενη πολύ μικρή βελτίωση του ελλείμματος του τακτικού προϋπολογισμού, μόλις 0,8% του ΑΕΠ. Πρόβλεψη η οποία στηρίζεται κατά κύριο λόγο σε αβέβαια και μη επαναλαμβανόμενα έσοδα, από τυχερά παιχνίδια, φορολογικά πρόστιμα, άδειες συχνοτήτων, επιτάχυνση επίλυσης φορολογικών διαφορών κ.λπ..
Κύριοι της κυβέρνησης προσπαθείτε να δημιουργήσετε μια εικονική πραγματικότητα. Στην οποία όμως ούτε εσείς οι ίδιοι πιστεύετε.
Απόδειξη της προχειρότητας με την οποία αντιμετωπίζετε το θέμα των δαπανών είναι το γεγονός ότι εδώ και 14 μήνες δεν έχουν δημιουργηθεί οι υποδομές μηχανοργάνωσης, ούτε έχουν επιλεγεί οι κατάλληλες διοικήσεις στα ταμεία και τα Νοσοκομεία για να μπορούμε βάσιμα να ελπίζουμε ότι θα επιτευχθεί η εξοικονόμηση στις δαπάνες υγείας κατά 2,1 δις. Εξοικονόμηση που θα μπορούσε να φτάσει ακόμα και τα 4 δις σε όλες τις δαπάνες υγείας αν υπάρξουν οι κατάλληλες προϋποθέσεις έτσι ώστε να μην ελεγχθούν μόνο οι τιμές αλλά και ο όγκος της προκλητικής ζήτησης ιατρικών πράξεων. Η υπερβολική και μη αναγκαία χρήση φαρμάκων, ιατρικών αναλωσίμων, εξετάσεων κ.λπ.
Υπάρχουν και άλλα αρκετά σημεία πιθανής αποτυχίας στα έσοδα και τις δαπάνες, που αθροιζόμενα μπορεί να μας φέρουν την καταστροφή. Αβεβαιότητες όπως τα 500 εκ. εξοικονόμησης από τον Καλλικράτη, οι υπεραισιόδοξες αυξήσεις εσόδων στις ΔΕΚΟ (π.χ. προβλέπεται διπλασιασμός εσόδων στον ΟΔΙΕ, στην ΕΘΕΛ και στον ΗΣΑΠ με πάνω από 300 εκ. επιπλέον έσοδα), η ανεξήγητη στην εισηγητική έκθεση αύξηση της προβλεπόμενης απόδοσης των τεκμηρίων από τα 400 στα 700 εκ. Ευρώ (μεταξύ μνημονίου και προϋπολογισμού). Επίσης ελλοχεύουν κίνδυνοι που αφορούν μεγάλο μέρος των φορολογικών εσόδων λόγω της αβεβαιότητας σε σχέση με την πραγματική έκταση την οποία θα έχει τελικά η ύφεση και η φοροδοτική ικανότητα της αγοράς, καθώς θα κλείνει λόγω έλλειψης ρευστότητας και προοπτικής μεγάλος αριθμός επιχειρήσεων.
Το σοβαρότερο πρόβλημα όμως είναι η έκταση και το είδος της προσαρμογής που επιχειρείται το 2011. Σε επίπεδο Γενικής Κυβέρνησης, που περιλαμβάνει και απεικονίζει τα πάντα, το 2011 επιχειρείται μια προσαρμογή 2,1% του ΑΕΠ, εκ των οποίων 1,6% στα έσοδα (κυρίως με έκτακτα έσοδα) και 0,5% στις δαπάνες. Σχέση προσαρμογής που λειτουργεί εις βάρος του ιδιωτικού και παραγωγικού τομέα της οικονομίας. Όπως είναι λάθος η προσπάθεια προσαρμογής να οδηγήσει σε μια γραμμική και ανεξέλεγκτη μείωση των μισθών των εργαζομένων στον ιδιωτικό τομέα. Το πρόβλημα της ανταγωνιστικότητας δεν είναι το ύψος δαπάνης της μισθωτής εργασίας στον ιδιωτικό τομέα, αλλά τα προβλήματα που δημιουργεί το κράτος και η παρεμβατικότητα του στην επιχειρηματικότητα και στην αναπτυξιακή διαδικασία.
Η δική μας θέση είναι ότι η σχέση προσαρμογής θα έπρεπε να είναι ακριβώς αντίθετη: Να δίνει πολύ μεγαλύτερο βάρος στις δαπάνες και όχι στα έσοδα. Η καθυστέρηση προσαρμογής στις ΔΕΚΟ και σε πολλά σημεία του κεντρικού κράτους, όπου βρίσκονται τα σπλάχνα της σημερινής κυβέρνησης, αλλά και γενικότερα του κομματικού συστήματος, κλείνει χιλιάδες επιχειρήσεις και καταστρέφει πολλές δεκάδες χιλιάδες θέσεις εργασίας στον ιδιωτικό τομέα. Θέσεις παραγωγικές επιχειρηματιών και εργαζομένων που παράγουν και δημιουργούν πλούτο. Εκεί όμως βρίσκονται τα παιδιά ενός κατώτερου θεού, κατά το κομματικό μας σύστημα. Εκεί μπορεί οι άνθρωποι να απολύονται χωρίς διαδηλώσεις, χωρίς απεργίες, χωρίς να χάνουν τον ύπνο τους οι κομματάρχες, που δεν τους διόρισαν και οι συνδικαλιστικοί φορείς που δεν τους εκπροσωπούν. Αυτό δεν είναι πλέον ανεκτό.
Ο μεγαλύτερος εντούτοις κίνδυνος για την χώρα βρίσκεται σε αυτά που δεν περιλαμβάνει ο σημερινός προϋπολογισμός. Στην ξεχασμένη υποσημείωση του μνημονίου, σύμφωνα με την οποία το 2012, 2013 και 2014, θα πρέπει να γίνει πρόσθετη μη προσδιορισμένη σήμερα μείωση του ελλείμματος ύψους 11 δις ευρώ. Η καθυστερημένη αυτή προσαρμογή, σε συνδυασμό με την αλματώδη αύξηση του χρέους, καθώς τα ελλείμματα μειώνονται βραδύτερα και με μεγαλύτερο κόστος για τον ιδιωτικό τομέα, είναι αυτή που εμποδίζει ακόμα και την σκέψη έστω για πρόσβαση στις αγορές. Με spread στις 900 μονάδες βάσης δεν υπάρχει φως στον ορίζοντα. Για αυτό και εμείς μιλάμε για ανάγκη σαρωτικών διαρθρωτικών αλλαγών άμεσα σε όλα τα επίπεδα.
Κεντρική αλλαγή ο περιορισμός της έκτασης του δημοσίου τομέα, με ευρύτερη συμφωνία των πολιτικών δυνάμεων, κατά το 1/3 στην επόμενη δεκαετία, με μαζικές αποκρατικοποιήσεις και μεταφορά δραστηριοτήτων στον ιδιωτικό τομέα. Για αυτό και μιλάμε για κατάργηση της μονιμότητας των νεοπροσλαμβανόμενων υπαλλήλων, για εφαρμογή ενός ενιαίου φορολογικού συντελεστή της τάξεως του 20% στις επιχειρήσεις το ταχύτερο δυνατόν, για μαζική και αποφασιστική άρση των εμποδίων στην επιχειρηματικότητα. Για αυτό και ζητάμε δραστική αλλαγή συνδικαλιστικού μοντέλου με συνδικαλιστές που να εργάζονται και οικειοθελή κατάργηση των κομματικών παρατάξεων στα συνδικάτα και τα πανεπιστήμια.
Ζητούμε δραστικότερες, σαρωτικές αλλαγές και για ένα ακόμα λόγο. Γιατί το τεράστιο ύψος του χρέους και η καθυστέρηση κανονικής πρόσβασης στις αγορές, μπορούν σε περίπτωση αύξησης των διεθνών επιτοκίων, που βρίσκονται σήμερα σε ιστορικό χαμηλό, να τινάξουν οποιαδήποτε προσπάθεια ανάκαμψης στον αέρα. Και δεν αναφέρομαι εδώ μόνο στο δημόσιο, αλλά και στο ιδιωτικό χρέος.
Ταχύτερες αλλαγές θα μας επιτρέψουν επίσης να αποκτήσουμε ξανά αξιόπιστη φωνή στο εσωτερικό της Ένωσης, όπου τα πράγματα δεν πηγαίνουν καθόλου καλά. Η Ελλάδα μπορεί κινούμενη ταχύτερα κατ' εξοχήν να συνεισφέρει στη βιωσιμότητα της ευρωζώνης και να συμμαχήσει έτσι περισσότερο αξιόπιστα με όσους ζητούν από την Ευρωπαϊκή Κεντρική Τράπεζα, μια κάπως χαλαρότερη νομισματική πολιτική, που θα μας διευκόλυνε να αποκαταστήσουμε την ανταγωνιστικότητά μας, όπως και την ανταγωνιστικότητα των άλλων χωρών του νότου. Ο διάλογος αυτός -κυρίως με τους Γερμανούς- πρέπει να ανοίξει, αν θέλουμε η ευρωζώνη να αποφύγει τα χειρότερα. Και στο πνεύμα του ευρωπαϊκού συμβιβασμού, ο νότος να προσφέρει περισσότερη δημοσιονομική πειθαρχία και βαθιές διαρθρωτικές αλλαγές και ο βοράς ένα φθηνότερο ευρώ.
Χρειαζόμαστε όμως σαρωτικές διαρθρωτικές αλλαγές και για έναν ακόμα λόγο. Γιατί δεν είναι δυνατόν να βιώνεται η κρίση αυτή χωρίς ένα ανεκτό δίκτυ προστασίας για τους πραγματικά κοινωνικά αδυνάτους. Γνωρίζοντας πολύ καλά την δημοσιονομική πραγματικότητα, αλλά και την εικόνα που έχει ο μέσος πολίτης για το πολιτικό σύστημα προτείνω μια πολύ συγκεκριμένη κοινωνική δαπάνη, με συμβολικό αλλά και ουσιαστικό χαρακτήρα. Την αύξηση του ΕΚΑΣ κατά 150 εκ. Ευρώ. Θυμίζω ότι το 2010 μειώθηκε κατά 145 εκ Ευρώ. Αυτά τα 150 εκ. Ευρώ, για τους συνταξιούχους μπορούμε να τα εξασφαλίσουμε με συγκεκριμένες περικοπές. Με περικοπές από το κονδύλι της Βουλής (10 εκ.), το κονδύλι για τα κόμματα (με μείωση από τα 75 στα 55 εκ.), αυξημένο τέλος αλληλεγγύης στις μεγάλες συντάξεις πολιτικού χαρακτήρα για τις οποίες δεν έχουν πληρωθεί αντίστοιχες εισφορές (συντάξεις βουλευτών, ευρωβουλευτών, Γενικών Γραμματέων Υπουργείων, Διοικητών Οργανισμών και Τραπεζών κ.λπ. με απόδοση 10 εκ. ευρώ), και από την μεταφορά 100 εκ. από τον πόρο που πληρώνεται για την ΕΡΤ στον τακτικό προϋπολογισμό, με αντίστοιχες περικοπές στον αριθμό των κρατικών σταθμών. Είναι συγκεκριμένη πρόταση σαφής, και θα βοηθούσε και τους ανθρώπους που έχουν πράγματι ανάγκη αλλά και την αποκατάσταση της αξιοπιστίας του πολιτικού μας συστήματος.
Πριν ολοκληρώσω θα ήθελα να κάνω μια σύντομη αναφορά στην τοποθέτηση της αξιωματικής αντιπολίτευσης. Βλέπω με ικανοποίηση ότι οι αντιμνημονιακοί τόνοι έχουν πέσει και ο μηδενισμός του ελλείμματος έχει αποσυρθεί στα ενδότερα της Ρηγίλλης και απ' ότι κατάλαβα θα ξεχαστεί εκεί σε κάποιο ντουλάπι εν όψει της μετακόμισης στη Συγγρού.
Λογικό είναι. Μεσολάβησε άλλωστε η ψυχρολουσία του αποτυχόντος αντιμνημονιακού μετώπου στις πρόσφατες εκλογές, η αμηχανία στην τελευταία σύνοδο του Ευρωπαϊκού Λαϊκού Κόμματος και τα στοιχεία της Eurostat που δείχνουν έλλειμμα 15,4% το 2009 και όχι 9,9% όπως ισχυριζόταν ο κ. Σαμαράς για να στηρίξει επί αυτού του 9,9% όλη την θεωρία του περί μηδενισμού.
Δυστυχώς όμως ενώ οι τόνοι έπεσαν η ουσία παραμένει. Η αξιωματική αντιπολίτευση δεν έχει αξιόπιστη οικονομική πρόταση. Και αυτό είναι και αποσταθεροποιητικό και επικίνδυνο για την συνολική πορεία της προσαρμογής. Ελπίζω η δική μας παρουσία και η πίεση την οποία ασκούμε, η οποία ήδη άρχισε να μετακινεί κάποιους ανθρώπους, θα οδηγήσει σε εγκατάλειψη του ακραίου λαϊκισμού που χαρακτήρισε τον πολιτικό λόγο της αξιωματικής αντιπολίτευσης στη διάρκεια των τελευταίων μηνών. Εμείς πάντως προτιμούμε να ανταγωνιζόμαστε με τις άλλες πολιτικές δυνάμεις σε θετικές προτάσεις και ιδέες και να μην χρειαζόμαστε να καταγγέλλουμε ανεδαφικές και επιζήμιες πρακτικές.
Κυρίες και κύριοι συνάδελφοι,
Τα χρόνια που έρχονται είναι δύσκολα. Η σχέση πολιτικής και εξουσίας αλλάζει. Η εξουσία από έπαθλο και λάφυρο μετατρέπεται σε βάρος και ευθύνη για δύσκολες και επώδυνες αποφάσεις. Για να ανταποκριθούμε στη νέα πραγματικότητα πρέπει να αλλάξουμε νοοτροπία, λογική και πρακτικές. Να βρούμε δρόμους σύγκλισης και συνεννόησης. Να αναλάβουμε το κόστος να αποκαταστήσουμε τη ζημιά που έχει γίνει. Εμείς ως νέος πολιτικός χώρος για αυτό θα αγωνιστούμε. Και ελπίζω ότι θα λειτουργήσουμε ως καταλύτης για να προχωρήσουν πιο γρήγορα οι μεγάλες αλλαγές που έχει ανάγκη ο τόπος.
Leaked Reports Detail Iran’s Aid for Iraqi Militias
On Dec. 22, 2006, American military officials in Baghdad issued a secret warning: The Shiite militia commander who had orchestrated the kidnapping of officials from Iraq’s Ministry of Higher Education was now hatching plans to take American soldiers hostage.
What made the warning especially worrying were intelligence reports saying that the Iraqi militant, Azhar al-Dulaimi, had been trained by the Middle East’s masters of the dark arts of paramilitary operations: the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps in Iran and Hezbollah, its Lebanese ally.
“Dulaymi reportedly obtained his training from Hizballah operatives near Qum, Iran, who were under the supervision of Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Quds Force (IRGC-QF) officers in July 2006,” the report noted, using alternative spellings of the principals involved. Read the Document »
Five months later, Mr. Dulaimi was tracked down and killed in an American raid in the sprawling Shiite enclave of Sadr City in Baghdad — but not before four American soldiers had been abducted from an Iraqi headquarters in Karbala and executed in an operation that American military officials say literally bore Mr. Dulaimi’s fingerprints.
Scores of documents made public by WikiLeaks, which has disclosed classified information about the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, provide a ground-level look — at least as seen by American units in the field and the United States’ military intelligence — at the shadow war between the United States and Iraqi militias backed by Iran’s Revolutionary Guards.
During the administration of President George W. Bush, critics charged that the White House had exaggerated Iran’s role to deflect criticism of its handling of the war and build support for a tough policy toward Iran, including the possibility of military action.
But the field reports disclosed by WikiLeaks, which were never intended to be made public, underscore the seriousness with which Iran’s role has been seen by the American military. The political struggle between the United States and Iran to influence events in Iraq still continues as Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki has sought to assemble a coalition — that would include the anti-American cleric Moktada al-Sadr — that will allow him to remain in power. But much of the American’s military concern has revolved around Iran’s role in arming and assisting Shiite militias.
Citing the testimony of detainees, a captured militant’s diary and numerous uncovered weapons caches, among other intelligence, the field reports recount Iran’s role in providing Iraqi militia fighters with rockets, magnetic bombs that can be attached to the underside of cars, “explosively formed penetrators,” or E.F.P.’s, which are the most lethal type of roadside bomb in Iraq, and other weapons. Those include powerful .50-caliber rifles and the Misagh-1, an Iranian replica of a portable Chinese surface-to-air missile, which, according to the reports, was fired at American helicopters and downed one in east Baghdad in July 2007.
Iraqi militants went to Iran to be trained as snipers and in the use of explosives, the field reports assert, and Iran’s Quds Force collaborated with Iraqi extremists to encourage the assassination of Iraqi officials.
The reports make it clear that the lethal contest between Iranian-backed militias and American forces continued after President Obama sought to open a diplomatic dialogue with Iran’s leaders and reaffirmed the agreement between the United States and Iraq to withdraw American troops from Iraq by the end of 2011.
A Revolutionary Force
Established by Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini after the 1979 Iranian revolution, the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps has expanded its influence at home under President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, a former member of the corps, and it plays an important role in Iran’s economy, politics and internal security. The corps’s Quds Force, under the command of Brig. Gen. Qassem Soleimani, has responsibility for foreign operations and has often sought to work though surrogates, like Hezbollah.
While the American government has long believed that the Quds Force has been providing lethal assistance and training to Shiite militants in Iraq, the field reports provide new details about Iran’s support for Iraqi militias and the American military’s operations to counter them.
The reports are written entirely from the perspective of the American-led coalition. No similar Iraqi or Iranian reports have been made available. Nor do the American reports include the more comprehensive assessments that are typically prepared by American intelligence agencies after incidents in the field.
While some of the raw information cannot be verified, it is nonetheless broadly consistent with other classified American intelligence and public accounts by American military officials. As seen by current and former American officials, the Quds Force has two main objectives: to weaken and shape Iraq’s nascent government and to diminish the United States’ role and influence in Iraq.
For people like General Soleimani, “who went through all eight years of the Iran-Iraq war, this is certainly about poking a stick at us, but it is also about achieving strategic advantage in Iraq,” Ryan C. Crocker, the American ambassador in Iraq from 2007 until early 2009, said in an interview.
“I think the Iranians understand that they are not going to dominate Iraq,” Mr. Crocker added, “ but I think they are going to do their level best to weaken it — to have a weak central government that is constantly off balance, that is going to have to be beseeching Iran to stop doing bad things without having the capability to compel them to stop doing bad things. And that is an Iraq that will never again threaten Iran.”
Politics and Militias
According to the reports, Iran’s role has been political as well as military. A Nov. 27, 2005, report, issued before Iraq’s December 2005 parliamentary elections, cautioned that Iranian-backed militia members in the Iraqi government were gaining power and giving Iran influence over Iraqi politics.
“Iran is gaining control of Iraq at many levels of the Iraqi government,” the report warned.
The reports also recount an array of border incidents, including a Sept. 7, 2006, episode in which an Iranian soldier who aimed a rocket-propelled grenade launcher at an American platoon trying to leave the border area was shot and killed by an American soldier with a .50-caliber machine gun. The members of the American platoon, who had gone to the border area with Iraqi troops to look for “infiltration routes” used to smuggle bombs and other weapons into Iraq, were concerned that Iranian border forces were trying to surround and detain them. After this incident, the platoon returned to its base in Iraq under fire from the Iranians even when the American soldiers were “well inside Iraqi territory,” a report noted. Read the Document »
But the reports assert that Iran’s Quds Force and intelligence service has turned to many violent and shadowy tactics as well.
The reports contain numerous references to Iranian agents, but the documents generally describe a pattern in which the Quds Force has sought to maintain a low profile in Iraq by arranging for fighters from Hezbollah in Lebanon to train Iraqi militants in Iran or by giving guidance to Iraqi militias who do the fighting with Iranian financing and weapons.
The reports suggest that Iranian-sponsored assassinations of Iraqi officials became a serious worry.
A case in point is a report that was issued on March 27, 2007. Iranian intelligence agents within the Badr Corps and Jaish al-Mahdi, two Shiite militias, “have recently been influencing attacks on ministry officials in Iraq,” the report said.
According to the March report, officials at the Ministry of Industry were high on the target list. “The desired effect of these attacks is not to simply kill the Ministry of Industry Officials,” the report noted, but also “to show the world, and especially the Arab world, that the Baghdad Security Plan has failed to bring stability,” referring to the troop increase that Gen. David H. Petraeus was overseeing to reduce violence in Iraq. Read the Document »
News reports in early 2007 indicated that a consultant to the ministry and his daughter were shot and killed on the way to his office. The March report does not mention the attack, but it asserts that one gunman was carrying out a systematic assassination campaign, which included killing three bodyguards and plotting to attack ministry officials while wearing a stolen Iraqi Army uniform.
The provision of Iranian rockets, mortars and bombs to Shiite militants has also been a major concern. A Nov. 22, 2005, report recounted an effort by the Iraqi border police to stop the smuggling of weapons from Iran, which “recovered a quantity of bomb-making equipment, including explosively formed projectiles,” which are capable of blasting a metal projectile through the door of an armored Humvee. Read the Document »
A Shiite militant from the Jaish al-Mahdi militia, also known as the Mahdi Army, was planning to carry out a mortar attack on the Green Zone in Baghdad, using rockets and mortar shells shipped by the Quds Force, according to a report on Dec. 1, 2006. On Nov. 28, the report noted, the Mahdi Army commander, Ali al-Sa’idi, “met Iranian officials reported to be IRGC officers at the border to pick up three shipments of rockets.”
A Dec. 27, 2008, report noted one instance when American soldiers from the 82nd Airborne Division captured several suspected members of the Jaish al-Mahdi militia and seized a weapons cache, which also included several diaries, including one that explained “why detainee joined JAM and how they traffic materials from Iran.” Read the Document »
The attacks continued during Mr. Obama’s first year in office, with no indication in the reports that the new administration’s policies led the Quds Force to end its support for Iraqi militants. The pending American troop withdrawals, the reports asserted, may even have encouraged some militant attacks.
A June 25, 2009, report about an especially bloody E.F.P. attack that wounded 10 American soldiers noted that the militants used tactics “being employed by trained violent extremist members that have returned from Iran.” The purpose of the attack, the report speculated, was to increase American casualties so militants could claim that they had “fought the occupiers and forced them to withdraw.”
An intelligence analysis of a Dec. 31, 2009, attack on the Green Zone using 107-millimeter rockets concluded that it was carried out by the Baghdad branch of Kataib Hezbollah, a militant Shiite group that American intelligence has long believed is supported by Iran. According to the December report, a technical expert from Kataib Hezbollah met before the attack with a “weapons facilitator” who “reportedly traveled to Iran, possibility to facilitate the attacks on 31 Dec.” Read the Document »
That same month, American Special Operations forces and a specially trained Iraqi police unit mounted a raid that snared an Iraqi militant near Basra who had been trained in Iran. A Dec. 19, 2009, report stated that the detainee was involved in smuggling “sticky bombs”— explosives that are attached magnetically to the underside of vehicles — into Iraq and was “suspected of collecting information on CF [coalition forces] and passing them to Iranian intelligence agents.” Read the Document »
A Bold Operation
One of the most striking episodes detailed in the trove of documents made public by WikiLeaks describes a plot to kidnap American soldiers from their Humvees. According to the Dec. 22, 2006, report, a militia commander, Hasan Salim, devised a plan to capture American soldiers in Baghdad and hold them hostage in Sadr City to deter American raids there.
To carry out the plan, Mr. Salim turned to Mr. Dulaimi, a Sunni who converted to the Shiite branch of the faith while studying in the holy Shiite city of Najaf in 1995. Mr. Dulaimi, the report noted, was picked for the operation because he “allegedly trained in Iran on how to conduct precision, military style kidnappings.” Read the Document »
Those kidnappings were never carried out. But the next month, militants conducted a raid to kidnap American soldiers working at the Iraqi security headquarters in Karbala, known as the Provincial Joint Coordination Center.
The documents made public by WikiLeaks do not include an intelligence assessment as to who carried out the Karbala operation. But American military officials said after the attack that Mr. Dulaimi was the tactical commander of the operation and that his fingerprints were found on the getaway car. American officials have said he collaborated with Qais and Laith Khazali, two Shiite militant leaders who were captured after the raid along with a Hezbollah operative. The Khazali brothers were released after the raid as part of an effort at political reconciliation and are now believed to be in Iran.
The documents, however, do provide a vivid account of the Karbala attack as it unfolded.
At 7:10 p.m., several sport utility vehicles of the type typically used by the American-led coalition blocked the entrance to the headquarters compound. Twenty minutes later, an “unknown number of personnel, wearing American uniforms and carrying American weapons attacked the PJCC,” the report said.
The attackers managed to kidnap four American soldiers, dragging them into an S.U.V., which was pursued by police officers from an Iraqi SWAT unit. Calculating that they were trapped, the militants shot the handcuffed hostages and fled. Three of the American soldiers who had been abducted died at the scene. The fourth later died of his wounds, the report said, and a fifth American soldier was killed in the initial attack on the compound.
Summing up the episode, the American commander of a police training team noted in the report that that the adversary appeared to be particularly well trained. “PTT leader on ground stated insurgents were professionals and appeared to have a well planned operation,” the report said.
What made the warning especially worrying were intelligence reports saying that the Iraqi militant, Azhar al-Dulaimi, had been trained by the Middle East’s masters of the dark arts of paramilitary operations: the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps in Iran and Hezbollah, its Lebanese ally.
“Dulaymi reportedly obtained his training from Hizballah operatives near Qum, Iran, who were under the supervision of Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Quds Force (IRGC-QF) officers in July 2006,” the report noted, using alternative spellings of the principals involved. Read the Document »
Five months later, Mr. Dulaimi was tracked down and killed in an American raid in the sprawling Shiite enclave of Sadr City in Baghdad — but not before four American soldiers had been abducted from an Iraqi headquarters in Karbala and executed in an operation that American military officials say literally bore Mr. Dulaimi’s fingerprints.
Scores of documents made public by WikiLeaks, which has disclosed classified information about the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, provide a ground-level look — at least as seen by American units in the field and the United States’ military intelligence — at the shadow war between the United States and Iraqi militias backed by Iran’s Revolutionary Guards.
During the administration of President George W. Bush, critics charged that the White House had exaggerated Iran’s role to deflect criticism of its handling of the war and build support for a tough policy toward Iran, including the possibility of military action.
But the field reports disclosed by WikiLeaks, which were never intended to be made public, underscore the seriousness with which Iran’s role has been seen by the American military. The political struggle between the United States and Iran to influence events in Iraq still continues as Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki has sought to assemble a coalition — that would include the anti-American cleric Moktada al-Sadr — that will allow him to remain in power. But much of the American’s military concern has revolved around Iran’s role in arming and assisting Shiite militias.
Citing the testimony of detainees, a captured militant’s diary and numerous uncovered weapons caches, among other intelligence, the field reports recount Iran’s role in providing Iraqi militia fighters with rockets, magnetic bombs that can be attached to the underside of cars, “explosively formed penetrators,” or E.F.P.’s, which are the most lethal type of roadside bomb in Iraq, and other weapons. Those include powerful .50-caliber rifles and the Misagh-1, an Iranian replica of a portable Chinese surface-to-air missile, which, according to the reports, was fired at American helicopters and downed one in east Baghdad in July 2007.
Iraqi militants went to Iran to be trained as snipers and in the use of explosives, the field reports assert, and Iran’s Quds Force collaborated with Iraqi extremists to encourage the assassination of Iraqi officials.
The reports make it clear that the lethal contest between Iranian-backed militias and American forces continued after President Obama sought to open a diplomatic dialogue with Iran’s leaders and reaffirmed the agreement between the United States and Iraq to withdraw American troops from Iraq by the end of 2011.
A Revolutionary Force
Established by Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini after the 1979 Iranian revolution, the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps has expanded its influence at home under President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, a former member of the corps, and it plays an important role in Iran’s economy, politics and internal security. The corps’s Quds Force, under the command of Brig. Gen. Qassem Soleimani, has responsibility for foreign operations and has often sought to work though surrogates, like Hezbollah.
While the American government has long believed that the Quds Force has been providing lethal assistance and training to Shiite militants in Iraq, the field reports provide new details about Iran’s support for Iraqi militias and the American military’s operations to counter them.
The reports are written entirely from the perspective of the American-led coalition. No similar Iraqi or Iranian reports have been made available. Nor do the American reports include the more comprehensive assessments that are typically prepared by American intelligence agencies after incidents in the field.
While some of the raw information cannot be verified, it is nonetheless broadly consistent with other classified American intelligence and public accounts by American military officials. As seen by current and former American officials, the Quds Force has two main objectives: to weaken and shape Iraq’s nascent government and to diminish the United States’ role and influence in Iraq.
For people like General Soleimani, “who went through all eight years of the Iran-Iraq war, this is certainly about poking a stick at us, but it is also about achieving strategic advantage in Iraq,” Ryan C. Crocker, the American ambassador in Iraq from 2007 until early 2009, said in an interview.
“I think the Iranians understand that they are not going to dominate Iraq,” Mr. Crocker added, “ but I think they are going to do their level best to weaken it — to have a weak central government that is constantly off balance, that is going to have to be beseeching Iran to stop doing bad things without having the capability to compel them to stop doing bad things. And that is an Iraq that will never again threaten Iran.”
Politics and Militias
According to the reports, Iran’s role has been political as well as military. A Nov. 27, 2005, report, issued before Iraq’s December 2005 parliamentary elections, cautioned that Iranian-backed militia members in the Iraqi government were gaining power and giving Iran influence over Iraqi politics.
“Iran is gaining control of Iraq at many levels of the Iraqi government,” the report warned.
The reports also recount an array of border incidents, including a Sept. 7, 2006, episode in which an Iranian soldier who aimed a rocket-propelled grenade launcher at an American platoon trying to leave the border area was shot and killed by an American soldier with a .50-caliber machine gun. The members of the American platoon, who had gone to the border area with Iraqi troops to look for “infiltration routes” used to smuggle bombs and other weapons into Iraq, were concerned that Iranian border forces were trying to surround and detain them. After this incident, the platoon returned to its base in Iraq under fire from the Iranians even when the American soldiers were “well inside Iraqi territory,” a report noted. Read the Document »
But the reports assert that Iran’s Quds Force and intelligence service has turned to many violent and shadowy tactics as well.
The reports contain numerous references to Iranian agents, but the documents generally describe a pattern in which the Quds Force has sought to maintain a low profile in Iraq by arranging for fighters from Hezbollah in Lebanon to train Iraqi militants in Iran or by giving guidance to Iraqi militias who do the fighting with Iranian financing and weapons.
The reports suggest that Iranian-sponsored assassinations of Iraqi officials became a serious worry.
A case in point is a report that was issued on March 27, 2007. Iranian intelligence agents within the Badr Corps and Jaish al-Mahdi, two Shiite militias, “have recently been influencing attacks on ministry officials in Iraq,” the report said.
According to the March report, officials at the Ministry of Industry were high on the target list. “The desired effect of these attacks is not to simply kill the Ministry of Industry Officials,” the report noted, but also “to show the world, and especially the Arab world, that the Baghdad Security Plan has failed to bring stability,” referring to the troop increase that Gen. David H. Petraeus was overseeing to reduce violence in Iraq. Read the Document »
News reports in early 2007 indicated that a consultant to the ministry and his daughter were shot and killed on the way to his office. The March report does not mention the attack, but it asserts that one gunman was carrying out a systematic assassination campaign, which included killing three bodyguards and plotting to attack ministry officials while wearing a stolen Iraqi Army uniform.
The provision of Iranian rockets, mortars and bombs to Shiite militants has also been a major concern. A Nov. 22, 2005, report recounted an effort by the Iraqi border police to stop the smuggling of weapons from Iran, which “recovered a quantity of bomb-making equipment, including explosively formed projectiles,” which are capable of blasting a metal projectile through the door of an armored Humvee. Read the Document »
A Shiite militant from the Jaish al-Mahdi militia, also known as the Mahdi Army, was planning to carry out a mortar attack on the Green Zone in Baghdad, using rockets and mortar shells shipped by the Quds Force, according to a report on Dec. 1, 2006. On Nov. 28, the report noted, the Mahdi Army commander, Ali al-Sa’idi, “met Iranian officials reported to be IRGC officers at the border to pick up three shipments of rockets.”
A Dec. 27, 2008, report noted one instance when American soldiers from the 82nd Airborne Division captured several suspected members of the Jaish al-Mahdi militia and seized a weapons cache, which also included several diaries, including one that explained “why detainee joined JAM and how they traffic materials from Iran.” Read the Document »
The attacks continued during Mr. Obama’s first year in office, with no indication in the reports that the new administration’s policies led the Quds Force to end its support for Iraqi militants. The pending American troop withdrawals, the reports asserted, may even have encouraged some militant attacks.
A June 25, 2009, report about an especially bloody E.F.P. attack that wounded 10 American soldiers noted that the militants used tactics “being employed by trained violent extremist members that have returned from Iran.” The purpose of the attack, the report speculated, was to increase American casualties so militants could claim that they had “fought the occupiers and forced them to withdraw.”
An intelligence analysis of a Dec. 31, 2009, attack on the Green Zone using 107-millimeter rockets concluded that it was carried out by the Baghdad branch of Kataib Hezbollah, a militant Shiite group that American intelligence has long believed is supported by Iran. According to the December report, a technical expert from Kataib Hezbollah met before the attack with a “weapons facilitator” who “reportedly traveled to Iran, possibility to facilitate the attacks on 31 Dec.” Read the Document »
That same month, American Special Operations forces and a specially trained Iraqi police unit mounted a raid that snared an Iraqi militant near Basra who had been trained in Iran. A Dec. 19, 2009, report stated that the detainee was involved in smuggling “sticky bombs”— explosives that are attached magnetically to the underside of vehicles — into Iraq and was “suspected of collecting information on CF [coalition forces] and passing them to Iranian intelligence agents.” Read the Document »
A Bold Operation
One of the most striking episodes detailed in the trove of documents made public by WikiLeaks describes a plot to kidnap American soldiers from their Humvees. According to the Dec. 22, 2006, report, a militia commander, Hasan Salim, devised a plan to capture American soldiers in Baghdad and hold them hostage in Sadr City to deter American raids there.
To carry out the plan, Mr. Salim turned to Mr. Dulaimi, a Sunni who converted to the Shiite branch of the faith while studying in the holy Shiite city of Najaf in 1995. Mr. Dulaimi, the report noted, was picked for the operation because he “allegedly trained in Iran on how to conduct precision, military style kidnappings.” Read the Document »
Those kidnappings were never carried out. But the next month, militants conducted a raid to kidnap American soldiers working at the Iraqi security headquarters in Karbala, known as the Provincial Joint Coordination Center.
The documents made public by WikiLeaks do not include an intelligence assessment as to who carried out the Karbala operation. But American military officials said after the attack that Mr. Dulaimi was the tactical commander of the operation and that his fingerprints were found on the getaway car. American officials have said he collaborated with Qais and Laith Khazali, two Shiite militant leaders who were captured after the raid along with a Hezbollah operative. The Khazali brothers were released after the raid as part of an effort at political reconciliation and are now believed to be in Iran.
The documents, however, do provide a vivid account of the Karbala attack as it unfolded.
At 7:10 p.m., several sport utility vehicles of the type typically used by the American-led coalition blocked the entrance to the headquarters compound. Twenty minutes later, an “unknown number of personnel, wearing American uniforms and carrying American weapons attacked the PJCC,” the report said.
The attackers managed to kidnap four American soldiers, dragging them into an S.U.V., which was pursued by police officers from an Iraqi SWAT unit. Calculating that they were trapped, the militants shot the handcuffed hostages and fled. Three of the American soldiers who had been abducted died at the scene. The fourth later died of his wounds, the report said, and a fifth American soldier was killed in the initial attack on the compound.
Summing up the episode, the American commander of a police training team noted in the report that that the adversary appeared to be particularly well trained. “PTT leader on ground stated insurgents were professionals and appeared to have a well planned operation,” the report said.
Τρίτη 7 Δεκεμβρίου 2010
Our Greek friends
The tragedy of the Carmel fire allowed Athens to prove that friendship is tested most in times of need.
Early Friday morning, fire-fighting planes and firefighters began pouring in from countries around the world, answering Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s call for help in fighting the largest forest fire it had ever known. Only hours before, the blaze claimed the lives of more than 40 people, most of them Prisons Service employees in a bus that got trapped in the flames.
The first arrivals were toy-like yellow planes, sent from Greece. They flew low over the Mediterranean, scooping up seawater. Then they moved inland, pouring the water over the flames.
Impressed by the speed of Athens’s response Netanyahu told reporters he “knew that the Greeks were our friends, but I didn’t realize what good friends they were.”
He then phoned Prime Minister George Papandreou to thank him personally. These planes – later dwarfed by the Russian Ilyushin and the American Boeing Supertanker – were immensely useful because in the time it takes to fill up the belly of one of the massive ones, they can make several sorties.
The tragedy allowed the Greeks to prove that friendship is tested most in times of need. And prove it they did.
This friendship has been cultivated at high gear over the last year, prompted by Papandreou’s change of attitude compared to previous Greek governments. It also reflects a close personal friendship that started casually when the two prime ministers dined at a Moscow restaurant in February.
Papandreou met Netanyahu when the financial crisis his country is still recovering from was at its media height. Greece was the bad boy of Europe. It needed to regain its prestige, and it needed to do it fast. And in the world of international politics, nothing does that better than putting one’s name on Israeli-Palestinian negotiations, advancing them, starting them, restarting or resetting them – get the Jews and the Arabs to talk peace and the world will applaud.
Truth be told, Athens has a good starting point.
Unlike Western EU members or the US , it has a lot of street-cred in the Arab world, cultivated over many years and consecutive pro-Palestinian, anti-Israeli governments.
And while Arab countries tend to be careful and calculating when forming alliances with non- Muslim countries, Israel happily welcomes new or strengthened alliances, especially in the immediate neighborhood.
The past year has seen an extraordinary flowering of ties, a love affair of sorts. The PASOK-led government of Papandreou is certainly friendlier than previous Greek administrations, but Israel also had a good reason to improve relations, namely the rapidly deteriorated ties with Turkey.
The flotilla incident on May 31 worsened an already weakened relationship with Ankara, whose leadership, weary of obstacles the EU poses on its path to membership, seemed to deliberately downgrade ties with Israel and move eastward. Whether this was a calculated move meant to make the EU welcome it into the club for fear of “losing Ankara to the Arabs’” or a genuine ideological position of Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s government remains to be seen; regardless, the country was an ally of Israel for years and ties were strong in both defense in commerce not so long ago.
It is reported that IAF jets flew through Turkish airspace en route to bomb a fledgling Syrian nuclear reactor three years ago, and the air force held regular training sorties in Turkish skies, often side by side with Turkish pilots. Ankara no longer allows such maneuvers.
Israel relies on air power for its defense and lacks the necessary airspace for training. The invitation to use Greek skies was therefore enthusiastically welcomed.
But both Greece and Israel have much more in mind than defense cooperation; Athens would love to see commercial ties develop on both a private and national scale, and looks admiringly at Israel’s achievements in satellite technology, agriculture and desalination (a hot issue on the agenda of a country also experiencing the woes of global warming).
And while Israeli businessmen may be wary of investing in Greece, the country would welcome a flow of foreign capital – including shekels – into its tourism industry and in other fields.
Papandreou visited in late July. Netanyahu visited Greece less than a month afterward. Since then the top tier of the Greek Foreign Ministry, including Minister Dimitris Droutsas, his deputy Dimitrios Dollis and the secretary-general Ioannis Zeppos, visited in October. Other visits included Tourism and Culture Minister Pavlos Geroulanos and the police chief Eleftherios Ekononou.
Following Netanyahu’s visit, Maj.-Gen. (res.) Amos Gilad, head of the Political and Security Bureau at the Defense Ministry, visited Greece in early October, followed later that month by Minister Bennie Begin and in early November by Deputy Defense Minister Matan Vilna’i. Greek Minister of National Defense Evangelos Venizelos has an outstanding invitation from his counterpart Ehud Barak.
RECENTLY THE Greek government initiated a series of meetings with high-ranking officials for a group of Israeli journalists to showcase the high gear bilateral ties have entered. In two separate discussions, Papandreou and Droutsas elucidated in what fields the new cooperation between Athens and Jerusalem can help both countries and the region.
Papandreou admitted that Turkey’s behavior served as a catalyst for the rise in ties but emphasized that, for the benefit of the whole region, Greece would be pleased to see Israel’s relations with Ankara restored.
“I think we have seen a potential which is there and which was not positively exploited in our relationship,” he said. “It does happen that this took place now, with your difficult relationship with Turkey. We need to create, and I think this is Israel’s point of view, a wider understanding in the region of cooperation...
tensions, whether they be from one side or another, or a third country, are generally counterproductive. I would see it positively that Turkey and Israel get their relationship back on track.”
Papandreou even tried, unsuccessfully, to bring Netanyahu and Erdogan together to hold a tripartite meeting. The three were meant to meet on the sidelines of a summit of the Mediterranean Initiative on Climate Change held in Athens on October 22, but Turkey canceled its participation.
Both Papandreou and Droutsas said Greece’s policy toward Israel was perhaps influenced by Turkey but certainly not dependent on what eventually transpires between Jerusalem and Ankara. Droutsas assessed that Israel’s focus on ties with Turkey before relations deteriorated may have stood in the way of strengthening ties with Greece, a move, according to him, begun in 1999, the last time PASOK held the reins.
“In the past, in the time span 1999 to 2004, we didn’t see these spectacular, if you like to call them that, results – why? Because at that time, Israel was much more focused on its relations with Turkey. I think this is a fact,” Droutsas said.
“But I’m going to be very clear on that we do not pursue and we are not exercising this policy vis-à-vis Israel and the strengthening of relations because of Turkey. It is for us a strategic approach. It’s a strategic relationship we are developing with Israel, but this is not to be interpreted as a tool against Turkey. We don’t see ourselves as a replacement for Turkey, and I don’t think Israel sees Greece as a replacement for Turkey.”
Momentarily ignoring the Turkish thorn in Greece’s own side – the occupation of northern Cyprus – Droutsas even went as far as hinting at a future tripartite cooperation.
“Imagine: You have three very important countries of the region, cooperating closely together. At least in theory, this seems to be the right recipe for stability in the region,” he said.
AND THEN, of course, Greece has its eyes on a place in the list of mediators between Israel and the Palestinians.
Before Papandreou’s government came to power, Jerusalem had absorbed criticism from many Greek governments and was wary of the Greeks’ friendliness to its enemies. In parliament there is a room with memorabilia from previous prime ministers.
The glass cabinet dedicated to Papandreou’s father Andrea shows the man photographed with Muslim leaders, a who’s who list of Israel’s enemies, including former PLO chairman Yasser Arafat and Libyan leader Muammar Gadaffi.
Papandreou junior wants to leverage those historical ties for Israel’s – and Greece’s – benefit.
“With our good relations [to the Arab world] we want to see how we can facilitate a strong move toward peace and cooperation... [During my recent visit to Israel,] I also went to Ramallah and talked to the leadership there. Anything you think we can do or, and I said this to the leaders of the region, anything we can help with, we’ll be glad to do so,” he said.
He said Greece had an interest in seeing the peace process progress since “the Middle East problem started as an issue between the Palestinians and the Israelis, but it is also taking on a religious dimension now which is much more dangerous and, I would say, much more contagious also.”
Papandreou mentioned his country’s history to explain why Greece may be more sensitive to Israel’s dilemmas. “We live in a region which has lived through splits and wars and ethnic strife, in the Balkans for example, in Cyprus.... so we know what conflict is. We know the difficulties, but we also know the positive side when we get beyond these problems. From our experience, we’re not coming into this from a sense of lack of understanding what conflicts mean.
And we don’t come with a magical solution,” he said.
Droutsas characterized Greece’s ties with the Arab world as “long-standing relations of mutual respect and confidence. This is something I do not deny; I don’t want to deny it, it is important and good.” He said he felt those ties were “Greece’s added value for this goal we are talking about, creating peace and stability in the region.”
He rejected outright the notion that strengthening ties with Israel is a zero sum game vis-à-vis the Arabs.
“In our approach, this kind of thinking – you are either with one or the other, if you look more to one side, you abandon the other side – is not the right one.
“Strengthening relations for Israel, becoming, for Israel, an entrusted partner, a collocutor – this is for us the key word. Greece is a member of the EU, let us not forget this. The EU can play an important role for the whole region. Greece is the member state of the EU which is [geographically] closest to the region; we have more understanding of what is going on. This is why feel we are also better accepted by the actors in the region as a collocutor.”
In late September, Syria became the 129th country to recognize the territory Greece refers to as the former Yugoslav republic of Macedonia by its official name, the Republic of Macedonia. Greece rejects the name, fearing it implies territorial pretensions toward its northern province of the same name. In his mid-October tour of the region, Droutsas also visited Jordan, Egypt and Lebanon; Syria was left off the itinerary.
The foreign minister admitted that Greece’s improving ties with Israel affect its traditional Arab allies, as the diplomatic jab of Syria recognizing Macedonia demonstrates.
“I would not be very credible if I said those who have problems with [our ties with Israel] accept it without saying anything. Of course we can see, we can hear that some [in the Arab world] are looking into what’s going on very carefully, they’re asking themselves where this can lead to.”
But he rejected the notion that Greece may reevaluate relations if Arab countries make their ties conditional on severing ties with Israel.
“We will put all our efforts into avoiding anybody placing any kind of ultimatum...
but I think it would not be wise or serious for me to talk about such theoretical scenarios,” he said.
Even more than Papandreou, Droutsas emphasized Greece’s potential to assist in the peace process, but was very careful to avoid making statements that could be perceived as patronizing or imposing.
“We as Greece certainly know our – let me use this word – our limits. We want to contribute; we don’t want to impose. I’m a realist.
If we wanted to impose something, I’m not sure whether we would be able to. We also don’t want to create the image that some other EU partners are creating, that the EU is coming now and is offering all its wisdom. I have made this very clear in all my talks during my recent visit to the region, to our Israeli friends, to our Arab friends, that this is not the role we are envisaging for Greece. We are not coming and saying, well, better you do this and do that.
“I know Israel is very sensitive about that.
In my talks I got the impression that Israel thinks it is not very wise to have too many cooks in the kitchen and I know that this goes especially for the EU. Again, our attitude is: The EU can help, it can be constructive, but I fully take the point, nobody should try to impose.
“Why do I dare to think that I can sound convincing about this? Because Greece has its own problems with Turkey, we have the Cyprus issue. We know what Greece’s approach to Cyprus issue is. Let the Greek Cypriots and the Turkish Cypriots decide freely, without pressure, without artificial timetables, blah blah blah blah – let them decide freely about their future. This is what we strongly believe. Help is always necessary, it is valuable, but it should be help and assistance, it should not be imposing.
This is why we think that we sound convincing when we say this, because we have our experiences with this, of others trying to be helpful by imposing things.”
Droutsas said that during his visit here he was educated on the subtleties of the peace process and that his new understanding can be useful in getting the two sides back to the table.
“I will say this openly: There is not much of an understanding in the international community and certainly within the EU about the position that Israel is expressing during this time. This is a fact. We understand much better the internal situation in Israel, regarding for instance the issue of the settlements. I understand out of these talks that this is an issue of high political sensitivity in Israel, so we have to take this into consideration.
“We are in a position to convey those sensitivities also to our other collocutors in the EU and yes, also to the Arab world. If you see [the issue of the settlement freeze] just as an outsider, then the Palestinian position sounds logical. But when you look a little bit deeper, into the Israeli soul if you want, then it is a deeper problem.”
He added that this did not mean Israel had a Greek carte blanche of support and that Athens would automatically back every Israeli decision.
“If Israel or if the Palestinians can make convincingly the point, they will also get the support of the international community.
So if Israel has a point vis-à-vis the Palestinians, Greece will not hesitate to say, ‘Yes, Israel is right.’ But if we see that the contrary is the truth, Greece will also not have a problem to tell its partner Israel, ‘Let us sit down and let us talk openly: There is a problem in the position you are taking.’” CAN GREECE then make progress where so many others failed? It offers Israel its love, but avoids what US officials somewhat euphemistically refer to as “tough love.”
And it certainly has years of dealing with Arab leaders who are traditionally suspicious of the Americans, the Obama administration’s declarations of evenhandedness notwithstanding. Not a sure bet then, but it’s always nice to make new friends. As the Carmel fire underlined, you never know when – or why – you might most need them.
Early Friday morning, fire-fighting planes and firefighters began pouring in from countries around the world, answering Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s call for help in fighting the largest forest fire it had ever known. Only hours before, the blaze claimed the lives of more than 40 people, most of them Prisons Service employees in a bus that got trapped in the flames.
The first arrivals were toy-like yellow planes, sent from Greece. They flew low over the Mediterranean, scooping up seawater. Then they moved inland, pouring the water over the flames.
Impressed by the speed of Athens’s response Netanyahu told reporters he “knew that the Greeks were our friends, but I didn’t realize what good friends they were.”
He then phoned Prime Minister George Papandreou to thank him personally. These planes – later dwarfed by the Russian Ilyushin and the American Boeing Supertanker – were immensely useful because in the time it takes to fill up the belly of one of the massive ones, they can make several sorties.
The tragedy allowed the Greeks to prove that friendship is tested most in times of need. And prove it they did.
This friendship has been cultivated at high gear over the last year, prompted by Papandreou’s change of attitude compared to previous Greek governments. It also reflects a close personal friendship that started casually when the two prime ministers dined at a Moscow restaurant in February.
Papandreou met Netanyahu when the financial crisis his country is still recovering from was at its media height. Greece was the bad boy of Europe. It needed to regain its prestige, and it needed to do it fast. And in the world of international politics, nothing does that better than putting one’s name on Israeli-Palestinian negotiations, advancing them, starting them, restarting or resetting them – get the Jews and the Arabs to talk peace and the world will applaud.
Truth be told, Athens has a good starting point.
Unlike Western EU members or the US , it has a lot of street-cred in the Arab world, cultivated over many years and consecutive pro-Palestinian, anti-Israeli governments.
And while Arab countries tend to be careful and calculating when forming alliances with non- Muslim countries, Israel happily welcomes new or strengthened alliances, especially in the immediate neighborhood.
The past year has seen an extraordinary flowering of ties, a love affair of sorts. The PASOK-led government of Papandreou is certainly friendlier than previous Greek administrations, but Israel also had a good reason to improve relations, namely the rapidly deteriorated ties with Turkey.
The flotilla incident on May 31 worsened an already weakened relationship with Ankara, whose leadership, weary of obstacles the EU poses on its path to membership, seemed to deliberately downgrade ties with Israel and move eastward. Whether this was a calculated move meant to make the EU welcome it into the club for fear of “losing Ankara to the Arabs’” or a genuine ideological position of Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s government remains to be seen; regardless, the country was an ally of Israel for years and ties were strong in both defense in commerce not so long ago.
It is reported that IAF jets flew through Turkish airspace en route to bomb a fledgling Syrian nuclear reactor three years ago, and the air force held regular training sorties in Turkish skies, often side by side with Turkish pilots. Ankara no longer allows such maneuvers.
Israel relies on air power for its defense and lacks the necessary airspace for training. The invitation to use Greek skies was therefore enthusiastically welcomed.
But both Greece and Israel have much more in mind than defense cooperation; Athens would love to see commercial ties develop on both a private and national scale, and looks admiringly at Israel’s achievements in satellite technology, agriculture and desalination (a hot issue on the agenda of a country also experiencing the woes of global warming).
And while Israeli businessmen may be wary of investing in Greece, the country would welcome a flow of foreign capital – including shekels – into its tourism industry and in other fields.
Papandreou visited in late July. Netanyahu visited Greece less than a month afterward. Since then the top tier of the Greek Foreign Ministry, including Minister Dimitris Droutsas, his deputy Dimitrios Dollis and the secretary-general Ioannis Zeppos, visited in October. Other visits included Tourism and Culture Minister Pavlos Geroulanos and the police chief Eleftherios Ekononou.
Following Netanyahu’s visit, Maj.-Gen. (res.) Amos Gilad, head of the Political and Security Bureau at the Defense Ministry, visited Greece in early October, followed later that month by Minister Bennie Begin and in early November by Deputy Defense Minister Matan Vilna’i. Greek Minister of National Defense Evangelos Venizelos has an outstanding invitation from his counterpart Ehud Barak.
RECENTLY THE Greek government initiated a series of meetings with high-ranking officials for a group of Israeli journalists to showcase the high gear bilateral ties have entered. In two separate discussions, Papandreou and Droutsas elucidated in what fields the new cooperation between Athens and Jerusalem can help both countries and the region.
Papandreou admitted that Turkey’s behavior served as a catalyst for the rise in ties but emphasized that, for the benefit of the whole region, Greece would be pleased to see Israel’s relations with Ankara restored.
“I think we have seen a potential which is there and which was not positively exploited in our relationship,” he said. “It does happen that this took place now, with your difficult relationship with Turkey. We need to create, and I think this is Israel’s point of view, a wider understanding in the region of cooperation...
tensions, whether they be from one side or another, or a third country, are generally counterproductive. I would see it positively that Turkey and Israel get their relationship back on track.”
Papandreou even tried, unsuccessfully, to bring Netanyahu and Erdogan together to hold a tripartite meeting. The three were meant to meet on the sidelines of a summit of the Mediterranean Initiative on Climate Change held in Athens on October 22, but Turkey canceled its participation.
Both Papandreou and Droutsas said Greece’s policy toward Israel was perhaps influenced by Turkey but certainly not dependent on what eventually transpires between Jerusalem and Ankara. Droutsas assessed that Israel’s focus on ties with Turkey before relations deteriorated may have stood in the way of strengthening ties with Greece, a move, according to him, begun in 1999, the last time PASOK held the reins.
“In the past, in the time span 1999 to 2004, we didn’t see these spectacular, if you like to call them that, results – why? Because at that time, Israel was much more focused on its relations with Turkey. I think this is a fact,” Droutsas said.
“But I’m going to be very clear on that we do not pursue and we are not exercising this policy vis-à-vis Israel and the strengthening of relations because of Turkey. It is for us a strategic approach. It’s a strategic relationship we are developing with Israel, but this is not to be interpreted as a tool against Turkey. We don’t see ourselves as a replacement for Turkey, and I don’t think Israel sees Greece as a replacement for Turkey.”
Momentarily ignoring the Turkish thorn in Greece’s own side – the occupation of northern Cyprus – Droutsas even went as far as hinting at a future tripartite cooperation.
“Imagine: You have three very important countries of the region, cooperating closely together. At least in theory, this seems to be the right recipe for stability in the region,” he said.
AND THEN, of course, Greece has its eyes on a place in the list of mediators between Israel and the Palestinians.
Before Papandreou’s government came to power, Jerusalem had absorbed criticism from many Greek governments and was wary of the Greeks’ friendliness to its enemies. In parliament there is a room with memorabilia from previous prime ministers.
The glass cabinet dedicated to Papandreou’s father Andrea shows the man photographed with Muslim leaders, a who’s who list of Israel’s enemies, including former PLO chairman Yasser Arafat and Libyan leader Muammar Gadaffi.
Papandreou junior wants to leverage those historical ties for Israel’s – and Greece’s – benefit.
“With our good relations [to the Arab world] we want to see how we can facilitate a strong move toward peace and cooperation... [During my recent visit to Israel,] I also went to Ramallah and talked to the leadership there. Anything you think we can do or, and I said this to the leaders of the region, anything we can help with, we’ll be glad to do so,” he said.
He said Greece had an interest in seeing the peace process progress since “the Middle East problem started as an issue between the Palestinians and the Israelis, but it is also taking on a religious dimension now which is much more dangerous and, I would say, much more contagious also.”
Papandreou mentioned his country’s history to explain why Greece may be more sensitive to Israel’s dilemmas. “We live in a region which has lived through splits and wars and ethnic strife, in the Balkans for example, in Cyprus.... so we know what conflict is. We know the difficulties, but we also know the positive side when we get beyond these problems. From our experience, we’re not coming into this from a sense of lack of understanding what conflicts mean.
And we don’t come with a magical solution,” he said.
Droutsas characterized Greece’s ties with the Arab world as “long-standing relations of mutual respect and confidence. This is something I do not deny; I don’t want to deny it, it is important and good.” He said he felt those ties were “Greece’s added value for this goal we are talking about, creating peace and stability in the region.”
He rejected outright the notion that strengthening ties with Israel is a zero sum game vis-à-vis the Arabs.
“In our approach, this kind of thinking – you are either with one or the other, if you look more to one side, you abandon the other side – is not the right one.
“Strengthening relations for Israel, becoming, for Israel, an entrusted partner, a collocutor – this is for us the key word. Greece is a member of the EU, let us not forget this. The EU can play an important role for the whole region. Greece is the member state of the EU which is [geographically] closest to the region; we have more understanding of what is going on. This is why feel we are also better accepted by the actors in the region as a collocutor.”
In late September, Syria became the 129th country to recognize the territory Greece refers to as the former Yugoslav republic of Macedonia by its official name, the Republic of Macedonia. Greece rejects the name, fearing it implies territorial pretensions toward its northern province of the same name. In his mid-October tour of the region, Droutsas also visited Jordan, Egypt and Lebanon; Syria was left off the itinerary.
The foreign minister admitted that Greece’s improving ties with Israel affect its traditional Arab allies, as the diplomatic jab of Syria recognizing Macedonia demonstrates.
“I would not be very credible if I said those who have problems with [our ties with Israel] accept it without saying anything. Of course we can see, we can hear that some [in the Arab world] are looking into what’s going on very carefully, they’re asking themselves where this can lead to.”
But he rejected the notion that Greece may reevaluate relations if Arab countries make their ties conditional on severing ties with Israel.
“We will put all our efforts into avoiding anybody placing any kind of ultimatum...
but I think it would not be wise or serious for me to talk about such theoretical scenarios,” he said.
Even more than Papandreou, Droutsas emphasized Greece’s potential to assist in the peace process, but was very careful to avoid making statements that could be perceived as patronizing or imposing.
“We as Greece certainly know our – let me use this word – our limits. We want to contribute; we don’t want to impose. I’m a realist.
If we wanted to impose something, I’m not sure whether we would be able to. We also don’t want to create the image that some other EU partners are creating, that the EU is coming now and is offering all its wisdom. I have made this very clear in all my talks during my recent visit to the region, to our Israeli friends, to our Arab friends, that this is not the role we are envisaging for Greece. We are not coming and saying, well, better you do this and do that.
“I know Israel is very sensitive about that.
In my talks I got the impression that Israel thinks it is not very wise to have too many cooks in the kitchen and I know that this goes especially for the EU. Again, our attitude is: The EU can help, it can be constructive, but I fully take the point, nobody should try to impose.
“Why do I dare to think that I can sound convincing about this? Because Greece has its own problems with Turkey, we have the Cyprus issue. We know what Greece’s approach to Cyprus issue is. Let the Greek Cypriots and the Turkish Cypriots decide freely, without pressure, without artificial timetables, blah blah blah blah – let them decide freely about their future. This is what we strongly believe. Help is always necessary, it is valuable, but it should be help and assistance, it should not be imposing.
This is why we think that we sound convincing when we say this, because we have our experiences with this, of others trying to be helpful by imposing things.”
Droutsas said that during his visit here he was educated on the subtleties of the peace process and that his new understanding can be useful in getting the two sides back to the table.
“I will say this openly: There is not much of an understanding in the international community and certainly within the EU about the position that Israel is expressing during this time. This is a fact. We understand much better the internal situation in Israel, regarding for instance the issue of the settlements. I understand out of these talks that this is an issue of high political sensitivity in Israel, so we have to take this into consideration.
“We are in a position to convey those sensitivities also to our other collocutors in the EU and yes, also to the Arab world. If you see [the issue of the settlement freeze] just as an outsider, then the Palestinian position sounds logical. But when you look a little bit deeper, into the Israeli soul if you want, then it is a deeper problem.”
He added that this did not mean Israel had a Greek carte blanche of support and that Athens would automatically back every Israeli decision.
“If Israel or if the Palestinians can make convincingly the point, they will also get the support of the international community.
So if Israel has a point vis-à-vis the Palestinians, Greece will not hesitate to say, ‘Yes, Israel is right.’ But if we see that the contrary is the truth, Greece will also not have a problem to tell its partner Israel, ‘Let us sit down and let us talk openly: There is a problem in the position you are taking.’” CAN GREECE then make progress where so many others failed? It offers Israel its love, but avoids what US officials somewhat euphemistically refer to as “tough love.”
And it certainly has years of dealing with Arab leaders who are traditionally suspicious of the Americans, the Obama administration’s declarations of evenhandedness notwithstanding. Not a sure bet then, but it’s always nice to make new friends. As the Carmel fire underlined, you never know when – or why – you might most need them.
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Wikileaks founder Julian Assange arrested in London
The founder of the whistle-blowing website Wikileaks, Julian Assange, has been arrested by the Metropolitan Police.
The 39-year-old Australian denies allegations he sexually assaulted two women in Sweden.
Scotland Yard said Mr Assange was arrested on a European Arrest Warrant by appointment at a London police station at 0930 GMT.
He is due to appear at City of Westminster Magistrates' Court later.
Mr Assange is accused by the Swedish authorities of one count of unlawful coercion, two counts of sexual molestation and one count of rape, all alleged to have been committed in August 2010.
The 39-year-old Australian denies allegations he sexually assaulted two women in Sweden.
Scotland Yard said Mr Assange was arrested on a European Arrest Warrant by appointment at a London police station at 0930 GMT.
He is due to appear at City of Westminster Magistrates' Court later.
Mr Assange is accused by the Swedish authorities of one count of unlawful coercion, two counts of sexual molestation and one count of rape, all alleged to have been committed in August 2010.
Ahmadinejad: If West drops sanctions, nuke talks can work
As the second day of nuclear talks with the P5+1 group in Geneva began Tuesday morning, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said that if sanctions are removed, that nuclear "talks will definitely be fruitful," Reuters reported.
In a speech dubbed in English on PressTV, the Iranian president said that only "by putting aside all of the wrong decisions, and the inappropriate manners that you have, by scrapping all those [sanctions] resolutions that have had no effect on the Iranian people, by putting aside and cancelling all those restrictions you have created," could the nuclear talks succeed, according to Reuters.
In a speech dubbed in English on PressTV, the Iranian president said that only "by putting aside all of the wrong decisions, and the inappropriate manners that you have, by scrapping all those [sanctions] resolutions that have had no effect on the Iranian people, by putting aside and cancelling all those restrictions you have created," could the nuclear talks succeed, according to Reuters.
Dutch politician says West Bank belongs to Israel
Controversial political leader Geert Wilders visiting Tel Aviv, calls for continued settlement building and defensible borders for Israel.
Dutch politician Geert Wilders called on Israel to build more settlements in the West Bank in defiance of international demands for a construction freeze on Sunday.
Wilders stated that building must continue so Israel can create defensible borders — by annexing the West Bank. Wilders is known in the Netherlands and Europe as a staunch critic of Islam and political Islamism.
Wilders also said on Sunday in Tel Aviv that neighboring Jordan should take in Palestinians.
While Wilders doesn't represent the Dutch government, he leads the Netherlands third most popular party, which supports the ruling coalition.
Dutch politician Geert Wilders called on Israel to build more settlements in the West Bank in defiance of international demands for a construction freeze on Sunday.
Wilders stated that building must continue so Israel can create defensible borders — by annexing the West Bank. Wilders is known in the Netherlands and Europe as a staunch critic of Islam and political Islamism.
Wilders also said on Sunday in Tel Aviv that neighboring Jordan should take in Palestinians.
While Wilders doesn't represent the Dutch government, he leads the Netherlands third most popular party, which supports the ruling coalition.
Faith leaders urge better protection of religious minorities in Europe, vow to establish closer ties
Over 50 leaders of Islamic and Jewish communities from across Europe met in Brussels on Monday for the first Gathering of European Muslim and Jewish Leaders to discuss initiatives for better relations between the two communities. The meeting was co-organized by the New York-based Foundation for Ethnic Understanding (FFEU), the World Jewish Congress (WJC) and the European Jewish Congress (EJC). As part of the gathering, a joint delegation met with the president of the European Council, Herman Van Rompuy, who supported the efforts undertaken by the group. They also held a working lunch with representatives of European Commission President José Manuel Barroso, at the Commission's Brussels headquarters.
The leaders discussed a common statement which calls for closer cooperation between the two communities in Europe and steps “to ensure that Jews and Muslims are able to practice our respective faiths fully and unimpeded by intrusive, discriminatory and unfair governmental regulations.” It urges “cooperative projects to succor the poor and homeless of all backgrounds, to help protect new immigrants who are threatened by hatred and xenophobia, and to heal the environment, bringing together Muslim and Jewish youth for joint programming.” It also denounces all forms of violence in the name of any religion or ideology.
FFEU President and WJC Vice President Rabbi Marc Schneier called the first Brussels Gathering of European Muslim and Jewish leaders “a promising beginning.” He stated: “Today, we have hopefully kick-started a movement that will spread across Europe. The recipe really is quite simple: our two communities must focus more on what unites us than what separates us. We also must restrain the radicals within our own ranks and make sure they don’t gain the upper hand.”
Moshe Kantor, president of the European Jewish Congress, declared: “I think it is very important that Jews and Muslims start talking more with each other, and less about the other. Pointing the finger at the other side and accuse it of being the root cause of all evil on this planet may be easy and convenient, but most of the time it is wrong – and counter-productive. How are all the disparate nations of Europe going to co-exist if citizens of the same country can’t share neighborhoods? We need to start at the micro level to succeed at the macro level. We need to pay attention to every level of intolerance, hate and xenophobia.”
At the opening session Iman Dr. Abduljalil Sajid (pictured on the right) from Britain spoke prayers, in which he included the victims of the recent fire in Israel and the floods in Pakistan. Senior representatives of both faiths from Austria, Belgium, Britain, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Switzerland and the United States attended the one-day gathering.
The leaders discussed a common statement which calls for closer cooperation between the two communities in Europe and steps “to ensure that Jews and Muslims are able to practice our respective faiths fully and unimpeded by intrusive, discriminatory and unfair governmental regulations.” It urges “cooperative projects to succor the poor and homeless of all backgrounds, to help protect new immigrants who are threatened by hatred and xenophobia, and to heal the environment, bringing together Muslim and Jewish youth for joint programming.” It also denounces all forms of violence in the name of any religion or ideology.
FFEU President and WJC Vice President Rabbi Marc Schneier called the first Brussels Gathering of European Muslim and Jewish leaders “a promising beginning.” He stated: “Today, we have hopefully kick-started a movement that will spread across Europe. The recipe really is quite simple: our two communities must focus more on what unites us than what separates us. We also must restrain the radicals within our own ranks and make sure they don’t gain the upper hand.”
Moshe Kantor, president of the European Jewish Congress, declared: “I think it is very important that Jews and Muslims start talking more with each other, and less about the other. Pointing the finger at the other side and accuse it of being the root cause of all evil on this planet may be easy and convenient, but most of the time it is wrong – and counter-productive. How are all the disparate nations of Europe going to co-exist if citizens of the same country can’t share neighborhoods? We need to start at the micro level to succeed at the macro level. We need to pay attention to every level of intolerance, hate and xenophobia.”
At the opening session Iman Dr. Abduljalil Sajid (pictured on the right) from Britain spoke prayers, in which he included the victims of the recent fire in Israel and the floods in Pakistan. Senior representatives of both faiths from Austria, Belgium, Britain, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Switzerland and the United States attended the one-day gathering.
Δευτέρα 6 Δεκεμβρίου 2010
Report: Hezbollah missiles can reach Tel Aviv
New York Times quotes Pentagon official as saying Lebanese Shiite group has 50,000 rockets and missiles, including some 40 to 50 Fatah-110 missiles, 10 Scud-D missiles; able sent by Clinton reprimands Assad for supplying arms. Egypt accuses Iran of providing $25 million a month to Hamas
US diplomats play a major role in trying to prevent arms from reaching world hotspots, but cables released to The New York Times show an uphill battle against the likes of Iran, Syria and North Korea.
In one cable given to the paper by WikiLeaks, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad is reprimanded for supplying sophisticated weapons to the Shiite terror group Hezbollah one week after providing assurances he would not.
Has Israel's force of deterrence been compromised by Carmel fire? Israeli officials debate
"In our meetings last week it was stated that Syria is not transferring any 'new' missiles to Lebanese Hezbollah," said the cable sent by US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in February.
"We are aware, however, of current Syrian efforts to supply Hezbollah with ballistic missiles. I must stress that this activity is of deep concern to my government, and we strongly caution you against such a serious escalation."
A senior official at the Syrian foreign ministry rejected the allegations, but nine months on the flow is unchecked, The New York Times said, citing Pentagon officials.
The New York Times report said that according to an American cable, the Syrian official argued that Hezbollah would not take military action if not provoked and expressed surprise at the stern American protest. The complaint, he said, “shows the US has not come to a mature position (that would enable it) to differentiate between its own interests and Israel’s.”
US diplomats, the cables reveal, are constantly confronting foreign governments about shadowy front companies and banks suspected of involvement in the illegal arms market but successes are rare.
Diplomats have attempted to stop a Serbian black marketeer selling sniper rifles to Yemen, China selling missile technology to Pakistan, and India exporting chemicals that could be used to make poison gas.
They expressed repeated concern that the Palestinian terror group Hamas was receiving weapons on huge cargo planes operated by Sudan's Badr Airlines.
'Newly fortified Hezbollah'
Despite Sudan's insistence the cargo was agricultural machinery, the United States asked other countries in the region to deny overflights but Yemen declined, according to a February 2009 cable released to The New York Times.
In another, dated April 2009, Egypt accuses Iran of providing $25 million a month to Hamas and links Tehran to a Hezbollah arms smuggling cell.
The cables shed light on how North Korea uses the Korea Mining Development Corporation as a front for its operations, relying on steel and machinery parts from China, Japan and Switzerland and Taiwan.
Diplomatic protests about North Korea's sale to Sri Lanka of rocket-propelled launchers and to Yemen of Scud missile launchers went unheeded in early 2009, cables show, according to The New York Times.
"Chinese banks have been targeted by North Korea as the main access point into the international financial system," said a July 2009 cable from senior US Treasury official Stuart Levey.
But the principal concern appeared to be Hezbollah and Syria, who President Barack Obama has sought to engage as part of his efforts to foster a wider peace in the Middle East.
"Syria's determined support of Hezbollah's military build-up, particularly the steady supply of longer-range rockets and the introduction of guided missiles could change the military balance and produce a scenario significantly more destructive than the July-August 2006 war," said a November 2009 cable from diplomatic staff in Damascus.
A particularly grave concern was that Hezbollah had been provided with sophisticated Fatah-110 missiles, which are deadly accurate and would have the capacity to strike most of Israel, including Tel Aviv.
The New York Times said that, according to a Pentagon official, Hezbollah's arsenal now includes some 50,000 rockets and missiles, including some 40 to 50 Fatah-110 missiles and 10 Scud-D missiles.
According to the New York Times, the cables note that Israeli officials told American officials in November 2009 that if war broke out, they assumed that Hezbollah would try to launch 400 to 600 rockets at day and sustain the attacks for at least two months.
"The newly fortified Hezbollah has raised fears that any future conflict with Israel could erupt into a full-scale regional war," the report said.
US diplomats play a major role in trying to prevent arms from reaching world hotspots, but cables released to The New York Times show an uphill battle against the likes of Iran, Syria and North Korea.
In one cable given to the paper by WikiLeaks, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad is reprimanded for supplying sophisticated weapons to the Shiite terror group Hezbollah one week after providing assurances he would not.
Has Israel's force of deterrence been compromised by Carmel fire? Israeli officials debate
"In our meetings last week it was stated that Syria is not transferring any 'new' missiles to Lebanese Hezbollah," said the cable sent by US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in February.
"We are aware, however, of current Syrian efforts to supply Hezbollah with ballistic missiles. I must stress that this activity is of deep concern to my government, and we strongly caution you against such a serious escalation."
A senior official at the Syrian foreign ministry rejected the allegations, but nine months on the flow is unchecked, The New York Times said, citing Pentagon officials.
The New York Times report said that according to an American cable, the Syrian official argued that Hezbollah would not take military action if not provoked and expressed surprise at the stern American protest. The complaint, he said, “shows the US has not come to a mature position (that would enable it) to differentiate between its own interests and Israel’s.”
US diplomats, the cables reveal, are constantly confronting foreign governments about shadowy front companies and banks suspected of involvement in the illegal arms market but successes are rare.
Diplomats have attempted to stop a Serbian black marketeer selling sniper rifles to Yemen, China selling missile technology to Pakistan, and India exporting chemicals that could be used to make poison gas.
They expressed repeated concern that the Palestinian terror group Hamas was receiving weapons on huge cargo planes operated by Sudan's Badr Airlines.
'Newly fortified Hezbollah'
Despite Sudan's insistence the cargo was agricultural machinery, the United States asked other countries in the region to deny overflights but Yemen declined, according to a February 2009 cable released to The New York Times.
In another, dated April 2009, Egypt accuses Iran of providing $25 million a month to Hamas and links Tehran to a Hezbollah arms smuggling cell.
The cables shed light on how North Korea uses the Korea Mining Development Corporation as a front for its operations, relying on steel and machinery parts from China, Japan and Switzerland and Taiwan.
Diplomatic protests about North Korea's sale to Sri Lanka of rocket-propelled launchers and to Yemen of Scud missile launchers went unheeded in early 2009, cables show, according to The New York Times.
"Chinese banks have been targeted by North Korea as the main access point into the international financial system," said a July 2009 cable from senior US Treasury official Stuart Levey.
But the principal concern appeared to be Hezbollah and Syria, who President Barack Obama has sought to engage as part of his efforts to foster a wider peace in the Middle East.
"Syria's determined support of Hezbollah's military build-up, particularly the steady supply of longer-range rockets and the introduction of guided missiles could change the military balance and produce a scenario significantly more destructive than the July-August 2006 war," said a November 2009 cable from diplomatic staff in Damascus.
A particularly grave concern was that Hezbollah had been provided with sophisticated Fatah-110 missiles, which are deadly accurate and would have the capacity to strike most of Israel, including Tel Aviv.
The New York Times said that, according to a Pentagon official, Hezbollah's arsenal now includes some 50,000 rockets and missiles, including some 40 to 50 Fatah-110 missiles and 10 Scud-D missiles.
According to the New York Times, the cables note that Israeli officials told American officials in November 2009 that if war broke out, they assumed that Hezbollah would try to launch 400 to 600 rockets at day and sustain the attacks for at least two months.
"The newly fortified Hezbollah has raised fears that any future conflict with Israel could erupt into a full-scale regional war," the report said.
Oil Eases After Reaching 2-Year High Near $90
Oil eased from a 26-month high near $90 on Monday as the dollar strengthened, countering support from talk of higher demand caused by cold weather in Europe and parts of the United States.
The euro fell, and the dollar rose against a basket of currencies , as the euro zone's debt problems weighed on sentiment. Oil and dollar-denominated commodities often move inversely to the dollar.
U.S. light sweet crude was last down. It was last traded around $89.03. It traded as high as $89.76, the highest intraday price since Oct. 9, 2008.
London Brent crude was also lower. It was last near $91.33.
"We've had a bit of a pullback — $90 is being a sticking point for WTI at the moment and we had a little dip because of the euro," said Rob Montefusco, a trader at Sucden Financial. "Going forward, we might get a bit of a lift and push up again."
Analysts said the cold spell in Europe and in parts of the United States should limit the downside for prices, because of greater heating demand.
"The cold weather on both sides of the Atlantic will likely prevent any meaningful declines from setting in this week," said Edward Meir, analyst at MF Global, in a report.
DTN Meteorlogix, a private forecaster, expects temperatures in the U.S. Northeast to average near to below normal over the next six to 10 days and below normal in northwest Europe.
Other analysts are calling for oil's rally to go further due to signs of a tightening market and falling inventories.
At least five banks raised their mid- or long-term price forecasts last week, citing factors such as rising demand in emerging markets, faster global economic growth and OPEC's reluctance to boost output.
For example, J.P. Morgan said on Friday oil would top $100 a barrel in the first half of 2011 and $120 before the end of 2012, predicting OPEC would be very slow to react to higher prices.
The Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries meets on Dec. 11. Rather than raise output to curb prices, OPEC is likely to roll over existing policy, ministers have said.
The euro fell, and the dollar rose against a basket of currencies , as the euro zone's debt problems weighed on sentiment. Oil and dollar-denominated commodities often move inversely to the dollar.
U.S. light sweet crude was last down. It was last traded around $89.03. It traded as high as $89.76, the highest intraday price since Oct. 9, 2008.
London Brent crude was also lower. It was last near $91.33.
"We've had a bit of a pullback — $90 is being a sticking point for WTI at the moment and we had a little dip because of the euro," said Rob Montefusco, a trader at Sucden Financial. "Going forward, we might get a bit of a lift and push up again."
Analysts said the cold spell in Europe and in parts of the United States should limit the downside for prices, because of greater heating demand.
"The cold weather on both sides of the Atlantic will likely prevent any meaningful declines from setting in this week," said Edward Meir, analyst at MF Global, in a report.
DTN Meteorlogix, a private forecaster, expects temperatures in the U.S. Northeast to average near to below normal over the next six to 10 days and below normal in northwest Europe.
Other analysts are calling for oil's rally to go further due to signs of a tightening market and falling inventories.
At least five banks raised their mid- or long-term price forecasts last week, citing factors such as rising demand in emerging markets, faster global economic growth and OPEC's reluctance to boost output.
For example, J.P. Morgan said on Friday oil would top $100 a barrel in the first half of 2011 and $120 before the end of 2012, predicting OPEC would be very slow to react to higher prices.
The Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries meets on Dec. 11. Rather than raise output to curb prices, OPEC is likely to roll over existing policy, ministers have said.
Fed Critics Run Risk Their Attacks Will Backfire
Bigamy, grave robbing and passing false checks are pretty much the only crimes that Ben Bernanke and the Federal Reserve have not been accused of in the past few weeks.
Since the US central bank launched its $600 billion round of asset purchases at the start of November, its critics have not hesitated to accuse it of recklessness, incompetence and conspiracy to devalue the dollar, often in vitriolic terms.
Wolfgang Schäuble, the German finance minister, called the Fed “clueless” and accused it of steering “the dollar exchange rate artificially lower”. Republicans in Congress decried a Fed policy that, through some voodoo, they think will not only fail to stimulate the economy but will also create inflation.
Last week’s Fed “data dump” – revealing details of 21,000 transactions with banks during the financial crisis from 2007-2009 – has prompted accusations that the Fed bailed out foreigners or lent against dodgy collateral.
There are legitimate criticisms of the Fed, but many of these attacks could be turned back on the attackers.
Start with the dollar. All else being equal, some fall in the exchange rate is the inevitable consequence of the easing of monetary policy, always and everywhere.
Yet since the start of November the euro has depreciated by about 5 percent against the dollar, prompted in large part by Germany’s insistence on talking about future mechanisms to restructure eurozone sovereign debt in the middle of a eurozone sovereign debt crisis.
Then there is the political criticism that the Fed’s asset purchases will lead to runaway inflation. Central bank purchases of government bonds can do this – but only in cases when politicians run a persistent fiscal deficit and then force the central bank to finance it.
“The Federal Reserve hasn’t gotten the message. Printing money is no substitute for sound fiscal policy,” said Mike Pence, a leading Republican in the House of Representatives, last month.
Quite right, the Fed might say, now how about that sound fiscal policy? Even as members of Congress attack the Fed, they are moving towards an extension of Bush-era tax cuts on all income levels that will add about $3.7 trillion to the deficit if continued over the next 10 years.
The official deficit commission run by Erskine Bowles and Alan Simpson came up with a plan that, like it or not, would deal with the deficit. It did not win sufficient bipartisan support. Congress is adding more than its share to long-term inflation risks in the US.
Finally, consider the fallout from the Fed’s data release last week. “After years of stonewalling by the Fed, the American people are finally learning the incredible and jaw-dropping details of the Fed’s multi-trillion-dollar bail-out of Wall Street and corporate America,” said Bernie Sanders, an independent senator from Vermont.
Two of the biggest criticisms are that the Fed lent against the questionable collateral of low-rated debt and that much of its help went to foreign banks. There is no doubt that the Fed took risks.
If Congress had not come through with the $700 billion troubled asset relief program then the results for the central bank would have been unpleasant.
But the point of the Fed’s lending was to provide liquidity to markets that had frozen up. It could not have done this if it had only been willing to lend against Treasury bonds, which were almost the only asset that remained liquid throughout the crisis without Fed help.
Heavy use of Fed facilities by foreign banks reflects the global role of the dollar and the intense demand for US currency during the crisis. Denying liquidity to overseas central banks and to the New York branches of foreign banks would have been a quick way to end that global role. It might also have forced foreigners to default on their obligations to American banks.
At least the Fed’s rescue worked: it was paid back in full, with interest, on all its emergency loans and prevented a devastating financial collapse. Would that Ireland – where bank losses have overwhelmed the government’s finances – could say the same.
Since the US central bank launched its $600 billion round of asset purchases at the start of November, its critics have not hesitated to accuse it of recklessness, incompetence and conspiracy to devalue the dollar, often in vitriolic terms.
Wolfgang Schäuble, the German finance minister, called the Fed “clueless” and accused it of steering “the dollar exchange rate artificially lower”. Republicans in Congress decried a Fed policy that, through some voodoo, they think will not only fail to stimulate the economy but will also create inflation.
Last week’s Fed “data dump” – revealing details of 21,000 transactions with banks during the financial crisis from 2007-2009 – has prompted accusations that the Fed bailed out foreigners or lent against dodgy collateral.
There are legitimate criticisms of the Fed, but many of these attacks could be turned back on the attackers.
Start with the dollar. All else being equal, some fall in the exchange rate is the inevitable consequence of the easing of monetary policy, always and everywhere.
Yet since the start of November the euro has depreciated by about 5 percent against the dollar, prompted in large part by Germany’s insistence on talking about future mechanisms to restructure eurozone sovereign debt in the middle of a eurozone sovereign debt crisis.
Then there is the political criticism that the Fed’s asset purchases will lead to runaway inflation. Central bank purchases of government bonds can do this – but only in cases when politicians run a persistent fiscal deficit and then force the central bank to finance it.
“The Federal Reserve hasn’t gotten the message. Printing money is no substitute for sound fiscal policy,” said Mike Pence, a leading Republican in the House of Representatives, last month.
Quite right, the Fed might say, now how about that sound fiscal policy? Even as members of Congress attack the Fed, they are moving towards an extension of Bush-era tax cuts on all income levels that will add about $3.7 trillion to the deficit if continued over the next 10 years.
The official deficit commission run by Erskine Bowles and Alan Simpson came up with a plan that, like it or not, would deal with the deficit. It did not win sufficient bipartisan support. Congress is adding more than its share to long-term inflation risks in the US.
Finally, consider the fallout from the Fed’s data release last week. “After years of stonewalling by the Fed, the American people are finally learning the incredible and jaw-dropping details of the Fed’s multi-trillion-dollar bail-out of Wall Street and corporate America,” said Bernie Sanders, an independent senator from Vermont.
Two of the biggest criticisms are that the Fed lent against the questionable collateral of low-rated debt and that much of its help went to foreign banks. There is no doubt that the Fed took risks.
If Congress had not come through with the $700 billion troubled asset relief program then the results for the central bank would have been unpleasant.
But the point of the Fed’s lending was to provide liquidity to markets that had frozen up. It could not have done this if it had only been willing to lend against Treasury bonds, which were almost the only asset that remained liquid throughout the crisis without Fed help.
Heavy use of Fed facilities by foreign banks reflects the global role of the dollar and the intense demand for US currency during the crisis. Denying liquidity to overseas central banks and to the New York branches of foreign banks would have been a quick way to end that global role. It might also have forced foreigners to default on their obligations to American banks.
At least the Fed’s rescue worked: it was paid back in full, with interest, on all its emergency loans and prevented a devastating financial collapse. Would that Ireland – where bank losses have overwhelmed the government’s finances – could say the same.
Goldman Sach's 2011 Forecast: Stocks, Gold, Oil Higher
Goldman Sachs is bullish on the U.S. economy for 2011, and forecasts U.S. stocks will see their third straight year of gains. The investment banking powerhouse sees the S&P 500 gaining nearly 25 percent to a level of 1450 in the next 12 months, fueled by strong corporate profits, easy monetary policies and an improving U.S. economy.
Goldman sees stocks gaining as the U.S. economic growth accelerating from 2.5 to 4 percent by the end of 2012, but says investors will continue to have doubt. (Watch comments by Goldman's Chief U.S. Investment Strategist David Kostin in the video clip later in this story.)
“Despite these many positives, the equity investing landscape is hard to decipher,” Goldman’s U.S. investment strategy team writes in its 2011 U.S. equity forecast, which is headlined “Easy Money, Hard Market.”
Investors remain understandably skeptical about positive economic data, Goldman says, because the improvement is coming from a fairly low base. But the strategists argue with strong corporate balance sheets, low inflation and interest rates that “the path of earnings growth has rarely been smoother.”
Goldman is recommending its clients increase their investments in cyclical sectors. It continues to overweight technology, and has raised its outlook on energy and financials to overweight from neutral.
Goldman also recommends investors underweight defensive sectors like health care, consumer staples and utilities.
Long U.S. Bank Stocks
Goldman’s global investment team rates U.S. Large Cap Commercial Banks among its "Top Trades for 2011." The firm expects financial sector earnings to grow 24 percnet, with the economic recovery leading to improving loan demands and credit trends for the big banks. It also believes the large cap banks will get back to paying dividends in 2011.
The firm recommends clients gain exposure to the sector through the KBW Bank Index or SPDR ETF based on the index .
Commodities: Gold, Oil Higher in 2011
Goldman believes low U.S. interest rates will continue to underpin the rally in commodities like gold. The firm expects the precious metal futures to climb to $1,690 an ounce by the end of 2011 and continue to move higher.
But the firm believes prices will likely peak at $1,750 an ounce in 2012, as the U.S. recovery will see interest rates move higher.
Goldman’s commodities strategists also see oil futures rising to $105 dollars a barrel in 2011, and demand improving along with the U.S. economy. The firm notes, “Energy is historically the best performing sector when the ISM is above 50, which seems increasingly likely given strong October ISM and our US economists upgrade to their 2011 growth outlook.”
Currencies: Top Trade, Bad Call
Among the risks Goldman sees for 2011 is moderating growth in China, as Beijing tries to reign in inflation.
While its economic teams saw the improvement in U.S. growth lagging emerging markets in 2010, Goldman strategists believe the trend has reversed over the last six months, “with our US economics team now more constructive on domestic growth, but our China economists expecting monetary tightening through increases in interest rates and reserve requirements over the next three to six months.”
One of the firm’s top trades for 2011 involves shorting the U.S. dollar/Chinese yuan exchange. The firm argues low rates in the U.S. will keep the dollar lower, while China will have to let its currency rise next year, as it undertakes policies to control growth. “Rising external political pressure on the CNY from the US and other countries, as well as the threat of escalating trade tensions, expose China’s dependence on exports. More gradual CNY appreciation would help alleviate these tensions.”
While most of Goldman’s 2010 predictions on the U.S. stock market, commodities prices and economic growth have generally proven right on the money, its crystal ball was much more cloudy when it came to some key currency calls.
One of Goldman’s top trades for 2010 proved a big loser. The firm’s currency strategists recommended shorting the New Zealand dollar and going long the British pound, saying at the time, “We are more bullish on Sterling, linked to a stronger cyclical momentum in response to a large easing in financial conditions.”
But the Kiwi has been strong performer this year on the strength of the country’s rising commodity prices. The analyst who made that call reportedly apologized to clients in a recent note, saying it may have results in losses of more 12 percent.
Even Babe Ruth never batted a thousand.
Goldman sees stocks gaining as the U.S. economic growth accelerating from 2.5 to 4 percent by the end of 2012, but says investors will continue to have doubt. (Watch comments by Goldman's Chief U.S. Investment Strategist David Kostin in the video clip later in this story.)
“Despite these many positives, the equity investing landscape is hard to decipher,” Goldman’s U.S. investment strategy team writes in its 2011 U.S. equity forecast, which is headlined “Easy Money, Hard Market.”
Investors remain understandably skeptical about positive economic data, Goldman says, because the improvement is coming from a fairly low base. But the strategists argue with strong corporate balance sheets, low inflation and interest rates that “the path of earnings growth has rarely been smoother.”
Goldman is recommending its clients increase their investments in cyclical sectors. It continues to overweight technology, and has raised its outlook on energy and financials to overweight from neutral.
Goldman also recommends investors underweight defensive sectors like health care, consumer staples and utilities.
Long U.S. Bank Stocks
Goldman’s global investment team rates U.S. Large Cap Commercial Banks among its "Top Trades for 2011." The firm expects financial sector earnings to grow 24 percnet, with the economic recovery leading to improving loan demands and credit trends for the big banks. It also believes the large cap banks will get back to paying dividends in 2011.
The firm recommends clients gain exposure to the sector through the KBW Bank Index or SPDR ETF based on the index .
Commodities: Gold, Oil Higher in 2011
Goldman believes low U.S. interest rates will continue to underpin the rally in commodities like gold. The firm expects the precious metal futures to climb to $1,690 an ounce by the end of 2011 and continue to move higher.
But the firm believes prices will likely peak at $1,750 an ounce in 2012, as the U.S. recovery will see interest rates move higher.
Goldman’s commodities strategists also see oil futures rising to $105 dollars a barrel in 2011, and demand improving along with the U.S. economy. The firm notes, “Energy is historically the best performing sector when the ISM is above 50, which seems increasingly likely given strong October ISM and our US economists upgrade to their 2011 growth outlook.”
Currencies: Top Trade, Bad Call
Among the risks Goldman sees for 2011 is moderating growth in China, as Beijing tries to reign in inflation.
While its economic teams saw the improvement in U.S. growth lagging emerging markets in 2010, Goldman strategists believe the trend has reversed over the last six months, “with our US economics team now more constructive on domestic growth, but our China economists expecting monetary tightening through increases in interest rates and reserve requirements over the next three to six months.”
One of the firm’s top trades for 2011 involves shorting the U.S. dollar/Chinese yuan exchange. The firm argues low rates in the U.S. will keep the dollar lower, while China will have to let its currency rise next year, as it undertakes policies to control growth. “Rising external political pressure on the CNY from the US and other countries, as well as the threat of escalating trade tensions, expose China’s dependence on exports. More gradual CNY appreciation would help alleviate these tensions.”
While most of Goldman’s 2010 predictions on the U.S. stock market, commodities prices and economic growth have generally proven right on the money, its crystal ball was much more cloudy when it came to some key currency calls.
One of Goldman’s top trades for 2010 proved a big loser. The firm’s currency strategists recommended shorting the New Zealand dollar and going long the British pound, saying at the time, “We are more bullish on Sterling, linked to a stronger cyclical momentum in response to a large easing in financial conditions.”
But the Kiwi has been strong performer this year on the strength of the country’s rising commodity prices. The analyst who made that call reportedly apologized to clients in a recent note, saying it may have results in losses of more 12 percent.
Even Babe Ruth never batted a thousand.
Citi CEO in Israel: The growth opportunities here are huge
Vikram Pandit: We intend to expand retail banking activity, but we have no plans to buy an Israeli bank.
Citigroup Inc. (NYSE: C) CEO Vikram Pandit is in Israel. He has met economic leaders, and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who made time for him from his schedule, which is currently crowded because of the need to deal with aid for victims of the Carmel fire.
This is Pandit's first visit to Israel, and was made to mark Citigroup's tenth anniversary of activity in the country. The visit is considered mostly representative, given Citigroup's aim to expand its Israeli operations and strengthen the position of its local branch in the country's corporate banking sector.
"I had the privilege of meeting the finance minister, the prime minister, and President Peres, and I took the opportunity to congratulate everyone on the amazing way in which the Israeli economy has coped in recent years, especially with the last crisis," Pandit said at a press conference at Citigroup's office in Tel Aviv.
"When you look at Israel's 4% growth, 4% deficit, and 6% unemployment, there are few such economies in the world today, and it is truly thanks not only to crisis management, but also to the relationship between the parties. Above all, it is something that touches on the clean way in which everyone works together to create a global competitive advantage and create an economy that is productive, original, and entrepreneurial. It is pleasant to be in such a place in the world where there is such a feeling, a feeling that is not common the contemporary economic world."
Citigroup has 30 employees in Israel. It has a trading room that is responsible for 10-15% of the transactions in securities, and it has 400-500 large business customers.
Pandit said, "We feel that Israel has huge growth opportunities, and we are here to be a part of this, and to support it in Israel. That means ensuring that our business can meet the pace of growth. A few months ago, we opened the international banking division, which handles private banking outside Israel, an important aspect because there are a lot of Jews in the Diaspora, and we think that this is an important product for customers in Israel."
Pandit disclosed some features of Citigroup's expansion plans in Israel. "We're examining the possibility of entering into products related to payments via mobile telephones in Israel. We want to be in a position in which the Israeli audience which roams the world - and there are six million Israeli passengers who travel abroad - knows two things wherever it goes: where the embassy is, and where the Citigroup branch is."
Pandit also hinted about Citigroup's plans for retail banking operations in Israel, saying, "We know that the era in which American consumers drove the economy has come to an end, and growth will come from emerging markets. Therefore, the big contemporary economic trends that we want to seize are emerging markets and global services, and these are our two main focuses of activity from now on."
Pandit dismissed the possibility that Citigroup might acquire an Israeli bank at this time. "Our main objectives in Israel are to grow with the economy, and to continue our activity in the country organically. Our strategy is organic."
Asked by "Globes" about the Israeli real estate market, Pandit said, "Every measure to expand available land is very important to people. There's an impression that the rise in prices can be dealt with. I think that this market in Israel is really fascinating at this time. We're part of this though our private banking activity, and we have no intention of creating specialized activity in this matter beyond our regular services."
Pandit also visited the offices of electric car venture Better Place, but refused to say whether he intended to invest in the company in the future. On the other hand, he expressed great enthusiasm at the oil and gas drillings taking place in Israel, and it would appear that he was not put off by the interim conclusions of the Sheshinski committee, whose main recommendation is to raise the state's share of oil and gas discoveries from one third to two thirds.
"The oil and gas drillings in Israel are a great story, because they offer the possibility that Israel will generate exactly the right kind of growth, and enable Israel to be an even bigger exporter," Pandit said. He expressed the hope that the money from taxation of oil and gas production would go towards education and building infrastructures that would enable Israel to grow "in important directions" as he put it.
He said that Citi too hoped to finance some of the investment in oil and gas. "We want to be part of the growth in Israel. There's nothing we would like better than to be part of fascinating projects of this kind," he said.
Citigroup Inc. (NYSE: C) CEO Vikram Pandit is in Israel. He has met economic leaders, and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who made time for him from his schedule, which is currently crowded because of the need to deal with aid for victims of the Carmel fire.
This is Pandit's first visit to Israel, and was made to mark Citigroup's tenth anniversary of activity in the country. The visit is considered mostly representative, given Citigroup's aim to expand its Israeli operations and strengthen the position of its local branch in the country's corporate banking sector.
"I had the privilege of meeting the finance minister, the prime minister, and President Peres, and I took the opportunity to congratulate everyone on the amazing way in which the Israeli economy has coped in recent years, especially with the last crisis," Pandit said at a press conference at Citigroup's office in Tel Aviv.
"When you look at Israel's 4% growth, 4% deficit, and 6% unemployment, there are few such economies in the world today, and it is truly thanks not only to crisis management, but also to the relationship between the parties. Above all, it is something that touches on the clean way in which everyone works together to create a global competitive advantage and create an economy that is productive, original, and entrepreneurial. It is pleasant to be in such a place in the world where there is such a feeling, a feeling that is not common the contemporary economic world."
Citigroup has 30 employees in Israel. It has a trading room that is responsible for 10-15% of the transactions in securities, and it has 400-500 large business customers.
Pandit said, "We feel that Israel has huge growth opportunities, and we are here to be a part of this, and to support it in Israel. That means ensuring that our business can meet the pace of growth. A few months ago, we opened the international banking division, which handles private banking outside Israel, an important aspect because there are a lot of Jews in the Diaspora, and we think that this is an important product for customers in Israel."
Pandit disclosed some features of Citigroup's expansion plans in Israel. "We're examining the possibility of entering into products related to payments via mobile telephones in Israel. We want to be in a position in which the Israeli audience which roams the world - and there are six million Israeli passengers who travel abroad - knows two things wherever it goes: where the embassy is, and where the Citigroup branch is."
Pandit also hinted about Citigroup's plans for retail banking operations in Israel, saying, "We know that the era in which American consumers drove the economy has come to an end, and growth will come from emerging markets. Therefore, the big contemporary economic trends that we want to seize are emerging markets and global services, and these are our two main focuses of activity from now on."
Pandit dismissed the possibility that Citigroup might acquire an Israeli bank at this time. "Our main objectives in Israel are to grow with the economy, and to continue our activity in the country organically. Our strategy is organic."
Asked by "Globes" about the Israeli real estate market, Pandit said, "Every measure to expand available land is very important to people. There's an impression that the rise in prices can be dealt with. I think that this market in Israel is really fascinating at this time. We're part of this though our private banking activity, and we have no intention of creating specialized activity in this matter beyond our regular services."
Pandit also visited the offices of electric car venture Better Place, but refused to say whether he intended to invest in the company in the future. On the other hand, he expressed great enthusiasm at the oil and gas drillings taking place in Israel, and it would appear that he was not put off by the interim conclusions of the Sheshinski committee, whose main recommendation is to raise the state's share of oil and gas discoveries from one third to two thirds.
"The oil and gas drillings in Israel are a great story, because they offer the possibility that Israel will generate exactly the right kind of growth, and enable Israel to be an even bigger exporter," Pandit said. He expressed the hope that the money from taxation of oil and gas production would go towards education and building infrastructures that would enable Israel to grow "in important directions" as he put it.
He said that Citi too hoped to finance some of the investment in oil and gas. "We want to be part of the growth in Israel. There's nothing we would like better than to be part of fascinating projects of this kind," he said.
Jewish groups sued over Madoff ponzi profits
Madoff trustee Irving Picard filing hundreds of lawsuits seeking to reclaim funds from groups alleged to have profited from their Madoff investments.
Amid the hailstorm of lawsuits unveiled in the Bernard Madoff case this week are a score of filings seeking to reclaim funds from non-profit organizations and foundations alleged to have profited from their Madoff investments.
Hundreds of these so-called clawback lawsuits have been filed en masse by Madoff trustee Irving Picard in recent days. The trustee and his legal team are apparently aiming to file all suits before the December 11 deadline, which will mark two years since Madoff’s 2008 arrest.
Non-profit targets of the clawback suits include the America-Israel Cultural Foundation, a 70-year-old organization that gives scholarships to Israeli artists. The group was sued on December 2 for over $5 million of what the lawsuit claims are fictitious profits.
Also targeted was the American Committee for Shaare Zedek Medical Center in Jerusalem, which was also sued on December 2 for nearly $7 million in alleged fictitious profits.
Representatives from both organizations were not immediately available for comment.
The charity pegged with the largest claim appears to be an organization called United Congregations Mesorah, which was sued for over $16 million. No information was immediately available about the group.
Other non-profits targeted by clawback suits on December 1 and December 2 include the Joseph Persky Foundation, the Miles and Shirley Fitterman Charitable Foundation, and the Melvin B. Nessel Foundation. In all, over 20 charities and foundations were sued.
None of the foundations and charities sued was alleged to have been aware that Madoff’s operation was fraudulent.
Conspicuously absent from the list was Hadassah. Public statements by the Zionist women’s organization have indicated that it profited from its Madoff investment, placing it at risk of a clawback lawsuit. Queries to Hadassah’s press representatives and to members of Picard’s team regarding the status of Hadassah with regard to the trustee’s investigation have not been answered.
Madoff himself is currently serving a 150-year prison sentence. And though $5.6 billion in claims have been submitted by Madoff customers, Picard had recovered only $1.5 billion as of September 30.
Other targets of Picard’s latest round of clawback suits include American businessman Morris Talansky, known for his involvement as a witness in the Israeli bribery case against then-Prime Minister Ehud Olmert. In that suit, which was filed on December 2, Picard alleges that Talansky, his wife, and a trust they controlled earned $653,342 in fictitious profits.
“Defendants have received $653,342 of other people’s money,” the complaint reads. Picard does not allege that Talansky knew that Madoff’s operation was fraudulent.
In addition to the suits against individual investors, Picard also filed a $6 billion suit against JP Morgan Chase on December 1. And in late November, Picard filed a $2 billion suit against Swiss bank UBS. Contact Josh Nathan-Kazis at nathankazis@forward.com
Read more: http://www.forward.com/articles/133613/#ixzz17LAE0WCs
Amid the hailstorm of lawsuits unveiled in the Bernard Madoff case this week are a score of filings seeking to reclaim funds from non-profit organizations and foundations alleged to have profited from their Madoff investments.
Hundreds of these so-called clawback lawsuits have been filed en masse by Madoff trustee Irving Picard in recent days. The trustee and his legal team are apparently aiming to file all suits before the December 11 deadline, which will mark two years since Madoff’s 2008 arrest.
Non-profit targets of the clawback suits include the America-Israel Cultural Foundation, a 70-year-old organization that gives scholarships to Israeli artists. The group was sued on December 2 for over $5 million of what the lawsuit claims are fictitious profits.
Also targeted was the American Committee for Shaare Zedek Medical Center in Jerusalem, which was also sued on December 2 for nearly $7 million in alleged fictitious profits.
Representatives from both organizations were not immediately available for comment.
The charity pegged with the largest claim appears to be an organization called United Congregations Mesorah, which was sued for over $16 million. No information was immediately available about the group.
Other non-profits targeted by clawback suits on December 1 and December 2 include the Joseph Persky Foundation, the Miles and Shirley Fitterman Charitable Foundation, and the Melvin B. Nessel Foundation. In all, over 20 charities and foundations were sued.
None of the foundations and charities sued was alleged to have been aware that Madoff’s operation was fraudulent.
Conspicuously absent from the list was Hadassah. Public statements by the Zionist women’s organization have indicated that it profited from its Madoff investment, placing it at risk of a clawback lawsuit. Queries to Hadassah’s press representatives and to members of Picard’s team regarding the status of Hadassah with regard to the trustee’s investigation have not been answered.
Madoff himself is currently serving a 150-year prison sentence. And though $5.6 billion in claims have been submitted by Madoff customers, Picard had recovered only $1.5 billion as of September 30.
Other targets of Picard’s latest round of clawback suits include American businessman Morris Talansky, known for his involvement as a witness in the Israeli bribery case against then-Prime Minister Ehud Olmert. In that suit, which was filed on December 2, Picard alleges that Talansky, his wife, and a trust they controlled earned $653,342 in fictitious profits.
“Defendants have received $653,342 of other people’s money,” the complaint reads. Picard does not allege that Talansky knew that Madoff’s operation was fraudulent.
In addition to the suits against individual investors, Picard also filed a $6 billion suit against JP Morgan Chase on December 1. And in late November, Picard filed a $2 billion suit against Swiss bank UBS. Contact Josh Nathan-Kazis at nathankazis@forward.com
Read more: http://www.forward.com/articles/133613/#ixzz17LAE0WCs
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