"Faites du ski, pas la guerre." C'est en substance le pari que fait Moscou, avec la coopération de Paris, pour normaliser la situation dans le Caucase russe, région extrêmement pauvre affectée depuis plus de cinq ans par une guerre civile...

Lire

In these times of austerity when the EU Council, European Commission and the European Parliament are making efforts to cut costs, there are two EU bodies operating under the radar whose budgets have been increasing in an unchallenged way: the Economic and Social Committee (EESC) and the Committee of the Regions (CoR)...

Read

Selon Didier Migaud, premier président de la Cour, la plus grande partie de l'effort de redressement reste à faire. Le rapport annuel pointe le décrochage sans précédent de la France par rapport à l'Allemagne sur la dette...

Lire

Stephen Hester has revealed that the dramatic restructuring of Royal Bank of Scotland has cost 38 billion pounds ($60.5 billion) in a rallying memo to staff days after the embattled chief executive waived a 1 million pounds bonus...

Read

Inspectors searching for shoulder-fired anti-aircraft missiles amassed by Moammar Gadhafi and prized by terrorists can't account for potentially thousands of them...

Read

François Hollande est formel. S'il est élu président de la République, le 6 mai, le candidat socialiste demandera une " renégociation " du traité sur la discipline budgétaire paraphé au sommet de Bruxelles le 30 janvier. Le calendrier n'est pas, pour lui, un problème. " Ce traité sera signé le 1er mars, mais je ne suis pas sûr que, au mois de mai, plus d'un ou deux pays l'auront ratifié. Ce traité, signé mais non ratifié, nous pourrons donc le renégocier ", assure le candidat socialiste, interrogé par Le Monde mercredi 8 février...

Lire

On Monday, Obama campaign manager Jim Messina announced that Priorities USA, a Super PAC staffed by former White House officials, would receive full fundraising support from the official re-election effort. On Tuesday, he visited Wall Street:...

Read

The Federal Reserve may need to launch another round of asset purchases with printed money, commonly known as quantitative easing, if the economy loses momentum or if inflation remains well below 2%, said John Williams, the president of the San Francisco Federal Reserve Bank, on Wednesday. Williams said buying more mortgage-backed securities "would likely be the best way to provide a boost to the economy." Williams is a voting member of the Federal Reserve's interest-rate-setting body this year...

Read

There's been a lot of talk recently about home prices reaching a bottom. Most notably, Bill McBride at Calculated Risk — perhaps the most respected housing market analysts in the blogosphere — says housing starts already bottomed and housing prices are likely to bottom in March...

Read

Japan’s current-account surplus in 2011 plunged 43.9 percent to fall below 10 trillion yen ($130 billion) for the first time in 15 years due to its first trade deficit in 48 years, Finance Ministry figures showed Feb. 8...

Read

Cristina Kirchner warns of 'grave risks to international security' and states intention to prevent war over natural resources. President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner has accused Britain of "militarising" the south Atlantic, and said she would seek UN intervention to prevent a war against Argentina for its natural resources...

Read

RENCONTRE - Pour Chris Probyn, économiste en chef d’un groupe financier américain, la Fed fait tourner en vain la planche à billet, l’économie américaine n’a plus de moteurs et l’Europe est au bord de l’implosion...

Lire

Neuf pays de l'Union européenne ont demandé à la présidence danoise d'accélérer les travaux en cours sur le projet de taxation des transactions financières, a annoncé mardi 7 février le ministre de l'économie français, François Baroin. Mis à part la France, l'Allemagne, l'Italie, l'Autriche, la Belgique, l'Espagne, la Finlande, la Grèce et le Portugal expriment leur volonté d'aboutir rapidement à cette taxe...

Lire

INFOGRAPHIE - Un Français sur deux admire le modèle allemand, selon un sondage Harris Interactive. Salaires, taxes, immobilier… Le Figaro.fr dresse un portrait chiffré des deux premières économies d'Europe en huit thèmes...

Lire

Mitt Romney has just rolled up back to back victories in the Nevada and Florida primaries, and his path to the Republican nomination looks to be inevitable. Republicans are mostly basing their voting decisions upon opinion polls showing Romney has the best chance of defeating President Barack Obama in the Nov 6th presidential election...

Read

C'est un épisode de basses eaux inédit sur le marché du financement des collectivités locales. Depuis le 1er janvier, les crédits bancaires, qui financent l'investissement, donc la croissance économique, sont à l'arrêt. La banque Dexia, sous perfusion de l'Etat, n'est plus autorisée à distribuer un euro de prêt, et les banques, entravées par la crise et les nouvelles règles de fonds propres, ont fermé le robinet du crédit...

Lire

Many Greeks are angry with their politicians, accusing them of playing tactical games ahead of elections as debt talks continue. DW spoke to three Greeks worried about the future of their country...

Read

Angela Merkel's decision to campaign on behalf of French President Sarkozy has infuriated the German opposition, with some warning that it could damage German-French ties. But German commentators say that the bigger threat is posed by Sarkozy's Socialist challenger Francois Hollande...

Read

Just days after the government approved its third reform of the financial sector in a little less than three years, three of Spain's largest lenders on Tuesday unveiled their plans for complying with the requirement of increasing coverage for potential losses in the value of their real estate assets...

Read

The International Monetary Fund cut its forecast for China's economic growth this year to 8.25% from 9.0% projected in September, citing the threat of weakening exports amid an uncertain global environment...

Read

Global systemic crisis - 2012: The year of the world’s great geopolitical swing
This GEAB issue makes it six years that the LEAP/ E2020 team have shared their anticipations with their subscribers and readers of their public briefing on the development of the global systemic crisis each month. And, for the first time, in the January issue which presents a summary of our anticipations for the year to come, our team anticipates a year which will not result solely in a worsening of the world crisis but which will also be characterized by the emergence of the first constructive elements of the “world after the crisis”… (page 2)
Read public announcement

USA 2012: on the way towards the tragedy of QE3
Today, US financial policy is confronted by the sovereign debt crisis of which it will be the ultimate victim in 2012. As LEAP/E2020 anticipated, the 2011 European debt detonator has truly ignited the 2012 American sovereign debt bomb, even if the media coverage desperately tries to make us believe the opposite. The massive sale of US Treasury Bills by the planet’s major central banks in the second half-year 2011 perfectly illustrates this situation incidentally… (page 7)
Subscribe

ANTICIPATIONS 2012 - ‘20-UP AND 15-DOWN’, THIRTY FIVE KEY TRENDS FOR 2012
Up or Down? The United States' political paralysis; The City and Wall Street ; The rise in interest rates; The forfeiting of value to Wall Street and the City; The value of Chinese reserves; The Pound Sterling (and Gilts); Euroland as new European sovereign; The USA-China “little cold war”; Italy; The importance of the US Dollar in world trade transactions; Rating agencies; The “great European public borrowing” (GEPB); MerkHollMont; Ron Paul; The number, size and influence of Western banks; The continuation of gold’s return in the international monetary system; Recessflation; Sarkozy, Cameron, Netanyahu and Medvedev; The BRICS maturing as a pro-active world player; Turkey’s exit from the Western camp; The Tobin Eurotax; Secular and pro-Western forces in the Muslim world; Growth; The usefulness of the G20; Lawsuits against those managing banks and hedge funds; The splitting of the world monetary system into three zones: Dollar, Euro, Yuan; The widespread downgrade of Western public debt; Peoples' anger; The Euro crisis; The EU as the principal incarnation of Europe; QE3 as the ultimate weapon for saving the US economy; The US’ capacity for military intervention; The West as a community of relevance and values; Scottish independence; Le détroit d'Ormuz et un nouveau contexte de crise au Moyen-Orient ; L'indépendance de l'Ecosse; The Straits of Hormuz and a new context of the Middle East crisis (page 19) (page 19)
Subscribe

The GlobalEurometre - Results & Analyses
We are seeing a strengthening in the majority considering that common European solutions to the crisis are more effective than national ones (80% in January versus 77% in December)… (page 33)
Subscribe