Leading German economist calls for dissolution of eurozone to save EU

 One of Germany's most eminent economists has called for the swift dissolution of the eurozone in its present form, arguing that the vision of a united Europe is in danger of imploding if debt-ridden countries are not shown the door.
Speaking before the founding conference on Sunday of a new breakaway political movement which wants to fiercely challenge Germany's support for eurozone bailouts, Joachim Starbatty, a professor of political economics who has filed repeated complaints with Germany's constitutional court arguing that eurozone bailouts are unconstitutional, said the EU would collapse if the eurozone battle was allowed to continue.

Italy seizes €1.8bn from Nomura over Monte dei Paschi di Siena fraud probe

 

Judges in Italy have ordered the seizure of more than €1.8bn (£1.53bn) of assets as part of an investigation into suspected fraud against troubled lender Banca Monte dei Paschi di Siena.Prosecutors in the city of Siena said most of the assets to be seized were funds held by Banca Nomura International, the Milan branch of Japan's Nomura International.The prosecutors said the Nomura seizure regarded €88m of hidden commissions received by the Japanese bank and €1.7bn of funds deposited with Nomura by Monte Paschi by way of collateral for a loan.Smaller sums, reported to total €14.4m, were to be seized from former Monte Paschi chairman Giuseppe Mussari, ex-managing director Antonio Vigni and the former head of the finance department, Gian Luca Baldassari.The Japanese bank's former CEO Sadeq Sayeed has also been placed under investigation as part of the fraud probe, along with senior Nomura executive, Raffaele Ricci.The prosecutor's statement said Sayeed and Ricci were suspected of "gravely obstructing" the activities of supervisory authorities and putting out "false statements".

Britain gave millions of pounds in aid to Putin government

 

In one initiative, the Department for International Development (DfID) handed over £4.5million to encourage Russian ministries to be more “efficient, effective and transparent” and improve the country’s “business environment”.

Two projects designed to encourage Russia to give more aid to other nations received £820,000. The department even funded a scheme to “enable older people” in Russia to “achieve positive change in their lives by influencing decision-makers”.

David Cameron and Justine Greening, his International Development Secretary, are coming under growing pressure to end the ring-fencing of foreign aid spending.

DfID and the Department of Health are the only Whitehall departments that have been protected from spending cuts imposed across Whitehall.

The Coalition has ended aid to Russia, China, Serbia and Cambodia, but has increased such funding for India. Many Conservative backbenchers feel it is unacceptable to give any support to India, a country with a fast-growing economy and better aircraft carriers than Britain.

The Telegraph looked at a series of projects the international development department launched in Russia under the last government.
The largest initiative, called “Russia: Public Administration Reform”, channelled British public money into four government agencies: the ministries of regional and of economic development, the federal anti-monopoly service and a body that oversees public spending.
One of the many objectives was to “improve competitiveness and [the] business environment for the private sector” in Russia.
Another stated aim was to give “support to federal
government and regions in implementing performance management and performance budgeting in line with good international practices”.
Launched in 2007, the project was finally ended by the department in March 2011. A report published later stated that although Russian officials had received training at the British taxpayers’ expense, the agencies concerned had not at that stage implemented DfID’s recommendations.
The report, which gives the project a success rating of 65 per cent, suggests the scheme ran behind schedule and extension was necessary.
“The work… was given a one-year extension to allow completion by 2011,” the evaluation reads. “By this time, DfID had no staff on the ground in Russia and no staff within the department responsible with detailed knowledge of the programme.”
As Britain’s economy sank into recession in 2009, the international development department launched its “Russia as a donor” initiative. This aimed to “support Russia in its role as an emerging donor” and received £542,813 of funding before it was wound up in March 2011.
At the same time the department gave £280,000 to Russian academics and “civil society organisations” to help “inform Russian aid programmes and policies”. It has yet to publish any reports evaluating these initiatives.
The department has also not revealed the success of £114,803 given to help the Russian equivalents of Age Concern or Saga. This initiative aimed to “enable older people to achieve positive change in their lives, and the lives of others by influencing decision makers, supported by an effective network of ageing NGOs”.
Anne Main, one of several Conservative MPs campaigning to increase the transparency of the Coalition’s aid spending, said the projects were typical of “the profligacy” and “lack of focus” of aid spending under Labour.
“I was surprised to see that the last Labour government thought it wise to spend aid money in Russia in general and particularly on these projects,” said Mrs Main.
“Our aid must be aimed at helping the neediest around the world and many of the previous government’s decisions led to money being wasted and those in need going without.
“There is still a long way to go. I still have yet to be convinced of the merits of some projects I am looking into.”

Military expenditure falls - but Russia and China buck trend

 China and Russia were the major countries to buck the trend of a worldwide decrease in defence outlays, the first for 14 years. They increased spending 7.8 per cent (£7.5 billion) and 16 per cent (£8 billion) respectively last year, compared to 2011. Austerity measures in the US and Western and Central Europe, as well as in Australia, Canada and Japan, pushed global defence spending down by 0.5 per cent to £1.14 trillion in 2012, according to the report by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute.The fall was partly the result of budget cuts associated with the global financial crisis, especially in the West, but was "substantially offset" by increased spending in Asia, Eastern Europe, the Middle East and North Africa, and Latin America."We are seeing what may be the beginning of a shift in the balance of world military spending from the rich western countries to emerging regions, as austerity policies and the drawdown in Afghanistan reduce spending in the former, while economic growth funds continuing increases elsewhere," said Dr Sam Perlo-Freeman, director of SIPRI's Military Expenditure and Arms Production Programme. Also significant was that the US share of world military spending fell below 40 per cent for the first time since the collapse of the Soviet Union. Washington's expenditure dropped six per cent in real terms to $682 billion (£444 billion) in 2012.

An Ailing Gorbachev Makes a Fierce Attack on Putin and His Restrictions

 Mikhail S. Gorbachev, the first and last president of the Soviet Union, now 82 and increasingly frail, may have needed a helping hand to climb on stage for a speech at the state-run RIA-Novosti news agency. Oratorically, however, he seemed nimble enough, delivering a sharp poke in the gut to President Vladimir V. Putin and the Kremlin.

“Politics is more and more turning into an imitation,” Mr. Gorbachev said. “All power is in the hands of the executive. The Parliament only seals its decisions. Judicial power is not independent. The economy is monopolized, hooked to the oil and gas needle. Entrepreneurs’ initiative is curbed. Small and medium businesses face huge barriers.”

Mr. Gorbachev, invoking “perestroika” — the Russian word for “restructuring” and the brand name of his reforms that brought about the fall of communism and helped him win the Nobel Peace Prize — called for yet another renewal of the Russian political system.

His prepared speech, posted later on the Internet, was even tougher than the remarks he delivered. In it, he wrote that by curtailing freedoms and tightening restrictions on civil society groups and the press, Mr. Putin had adopted “a ruinous and hopeless path.”

Russia: Opposition Activist’s Trial to Begin in April

The trial of the opposition activist Aleksei A. Navalny, who is accused of embezzling $500,000 from a timber company, will begin between April 15 and 19, and may be lengthy, court officials in Kirov now say. An aide to Mr. Navalny, Anna Veduta, said he had not been officially notified of the date. Mr. Navalny, the most recognizable face of the antigovernment protests that began in 2011, faces several criminal cases opened over the past year. In the embezzlement case, he is accused of organizing a conspiracy to steal timber from KirovLes, a state-owned company, while he served as an adviser to Kirov’s governor four years ago. Mr. Navalny has said he expects to be sent to prison. 

Will Russia Take ‘Yes’ for an Answer?

When Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel announced this month that the Pentagon would increase the number of missile interceptors in Alaska, he noted that the U.S. missile defense program in Europe would be restructured. This means cancellation of Phase 4 of the plan, which called for the deployment of upgraded interceptors in Eastern Europe.

The decision could open the way for resolving U.S.-Russian differences over missile defense, one of the thorniest problems on the bilateral agenda, and remove an obstacle to further nuclear arms reductions — if Moscow can say something other than “nyet.”

The initial Russian reaction gave little ground for optimism. But Russian officials often react slowly to new ideas, so we may not yet have the final word.

The Obama administration unveiled its “European Phased Adaptive Approach” in 2009 with the goal of deploying increasingly capable SM-3 missile interceptors in anticipation that Iran would develop missiles with increasingly longer ranges. Moscow initially appeared to welcome the approach.

In November 2010, NATO and Russia agreed to explore a cooperative missile defense for Europe. Talks between U.S. and Russian officials in early 2011 yielded significant convergence on questions such as transparency, joint exercises and jointly manned NATO-Russia centers to share early warning data and plan how NATO and Russia missile defense systems would work together.

The dialogue stalled, however, as Russian officials began to complain more vociferously about Phase 4 of the plan, originally scheduled for 2020, when the SM-3 IIB interceptor would achieve the capability to engage intercontinental ballistic missiles.

 Russia: New Law Allows Governors to Be Appointed, Undoing Reform

 President Vladimir V. Putin signed a law on Tuesday that could roll back a reform pushed by his predecessor allowing the direct election of regional governors. The new law allows regional legislatures to forgo elections and appoint governors from a list of candidates approved by Mr. Putin. He abolished direct elections for governors in 2004, during his second term as president, but President Dmitri A. Medvedev pushed a law through Parliament last year to restore them in what was seen as a major concession to a growing political opposition movement. Mr. Putin, now serving his third term as president, has said that the new law is needed to protect minorities in regions where elections could be combustible. Critics said the law would allow the pro-Kremlin United Russia Party to avoid election defeats by using its control of regional legislatures to bypass popular voting. The law was the latest unwinding of Mr. Medvedev’s initiatives since Mr. Putin returned to the presidency.

Spanish Princess Is Subpoenaed in Embezzlement Case Involving Her Husband

King Juan Carlos, as part of a widening investigation into whether her husband embezzled millions of euros from a sports charity, further tarnishing the image of the monarchy at a moment when corruption cases have shaken the foundations of virtually every public institution in Spain.

In naming Princess Cristina as a suspect, the court sundered efforts by the royal household to limit the damage of the investigation into the dealings of her husband, Iñaki Urdangarin. He first appeared in court in February of last year and has already been sidelined from any involvement in royal affairs.

The decision by José Castro, the Palma-based judge leading the case, has created an unprecedented opening for the corruption investigation to enter the palace, making Princess Cristina the first royal-born person to be called before court in modern Spanish history. Mr. Urdangarin, a former Olympic handball player, comes from a wealthy Basque family but was not part of the nobility until he married the princess.