Dec 14, 2011
By Indo Asian News Service | IANS
Source;Yahoo News Maktoob
Abu Dhabi, Dec 14 (IANS/WAM) Officials of the United Arab Emirates (UAE) have met representatives from Norway, Denmark and Hungary and discussed ways to expand trade and investment.
Minister of Economy Sultan Al Mansouri met Ase Elin Bjerke, the ambassador of Norway, and Poul Hoiness, the ambassador of Denmark.
Al Mansouri reiterated his country's interest in expanding trade, technological and investment cooperation with the Scandinavian countries, and to tap their expertise in the telecommunications, education, technology and energy sectors.
There are over 100 Danish as well as Norwegian companies operating in the UAE.
Meanwhile, the director for Europe at the ministry of foreign affairs, Mohammed Saif Hilal Al-Shehhi, met Hungarian ambassador Janos Gonci and discussed bilateral relations.
--IANS/WAM
Saturday, December 17, 2011
Jordan set to end reliance on Egyptian gas
December 17th, 2011
By Taylor Luck
Source: Jordan Times
JORDAN IS SET to move away from Egyptian gas due to the growing unreliability of the country’s main energy source, officials say.
In a statement earlier this week, Minister of Energy and Mineral Resources Qutaiba Abu Qura announced that the ministry is intensifying efforts to secure alternatives to Egyptian gas, on which Jordan relies for 80 per cent of its electricity generation needs, adding that the resource will not factor in the Kingdom’s future energy plans.
The minister’s statement, issued during a meeting of the Lower House Finance Committee, came amidst reports in the Egyptian press that Amman has gone back on its decision to ratify a new natural gas agreement, which was approved by the Cabinet in August and has been pending Cairo’s approval.
Officials denied that Jordan has formally withdrawn its support for the amended agreement, under which Egypt is expected to triple gas prices.
“We have had no developments, either towards ending or signing the new agreement,” Farouq Hiyari, the energy ministry’s secretary general, told The Jordan Times.
Despite the denials, according to a ministry source, frustration over the unreliability of gas supplies and a lack of communication from the Egyptian side has led Jordanian officials to “give up” on an arrangement that at its peak supplied the Kingdom with some 300 million cubic feet per day.
The Egyptian ministry of petrol declined to comment.
Cairo has yet to resume pumping since a Sinai explosion cut supplies on November 28, marking the ninth attack on supply line since the beginning of the year and the third in less than a month.
The most recent attacks came amidst assurances by Egyptian authorities that an increased military presence in the Sinai Peninsula combined with the arrest of several jihadists allegedly behind the spate of attacks would lead to the security of the pipeline.
According to sources at E-Gas, one of the two firms that oversee the 400-kilometre Arab Gas Pipeline - which also supplies Israel - repairs have faced “unexpected” delays leading to the prolonged disruption, which has forced the Kingdom’s power plants onto their fuel reserves at a cost of some JD3 million per day.
Economists say the series of attacks have had a direct impact on Jordan, with the series of disruptions pushing the national energy bill to record levels - over JD4 billion - and expected to widen the National Electric Power Company’s budget deficit to JD1.4 billion by the end of the year.
“For months NEPCO has covered the difference in price between natural gas and heavy oil, but this burden has become unsustainable,” NEPCO General Manager Ghaleb Maabreh recently told The Jordan Times.
According to officials, a ministerial team is to travel to Cairo “soon” to review the issue of gas supplies with their Egyptian counterparts before Jordan formally moves to end its decade-long reliance on Egyptian gas.
Meanwhile, Hiyari said talks are intensifying with Iraq and several Arab Gulf states over the potential of importing natural and liquid gas over the next decade as Jordan attempts to develop domestic energy sources including oil shale and nuclear power.
Despite the renewed efforts to secure additional energy sources, officials say it will take up to two years from the signing of any agreement before Jordan can benefit from a new energy market due to infrastructure requirements.
Should Jordan decide to end its decade-long reliance on Egyptian gas supplies, Hiyari said the government will resort to the international energy market to maintain electricity generation in parallel with its drive to secure additional energy sources.
“We will have no problem meeting the needs of electricity plants needs with oil and diesel during this period,” Hiyari said.
Energy officials privately conceded that the move will impact electricity tariffs as heavy fuel oil and diesel are much costlier than Egyptian gas imports, which Jordan previously received at prices of less than half the international market rate.
Sources claim the government has previously hesitated to formally end the country’s gas deal with Egypt for fear of raising electricity tariffs at a time of popular unrest over a struggling economy and a stalled political reform drive.
“Officials have finally come to the decision they can no longer wait around for the Egyptian situation to improve,” said an energy official who was not authorised to speak to the press.
“They have come to the terms that Jordan can no longer rely on subsidised energy.”
While an added economic burden for citizens, industry observers say the move away from Egyptian gas will serve as a boost to Jordanian oil shale, which experts say is cost competitive with unsubsidised natural gas, and renewable energy, which advocates claim has long been neglected in favour of subsidised fossil fuels.
Despite the recent boost in investments in the alternative energy sector, Jordan will not see the production of electricity from oil shale before 2016, while the first large-scale renewable energy project, a 90-megawatt wind farm south of Shobak, is not expected to come online before 2014.
Observers say uncertainty over Egyptian gas has elevated energy from a policy concern to an issue of national security for Jordan, which currently imports 98 per cent of its energy needs at a cost of 23 per cent of the gross domestic product.
By Taylor Luck
Source: Jordan Times
JORDAN IS SET to move away from Egyptian gas due to the growing unreliability of the country’s main energy source, officials say.
In a statement earlier this week, Minister of Energy and Mineral Resources Qutaiba Abu Qura announced that the ministry is intensifying efforts to secure alternatives to Egyptian gas, on which Jordan relies for 80 per cent of its electricity generation needs, adding that the resource will not factor in the Kingdom’s future energy plans.
The minister’s statement, issued during a meeting of the Lower House Finance Committee, came amidst reports in the Egyptian press that Amman has gone back on its decision to ratify a new natural gas agreement, which was approved by the Cabinet in August and has been pending Cairo’s approval.
Officials denied that Jordan has formally withdrawn its support for the amended agreement, under which Egypt is expected to triple gas prices.
“We have had no developments, either towards ending or signing the new agreement,” Farouq Hiyari, the energy ministry’s secretary general, told The Jordan Times.
Despite the denials, according to a ministry source, frustration over the unreliability of gas supplies and a lack of communication from the Egyptian side has led Jordanian officials to “give up” on an arrangement that at its peak supplied the Kingdom with some 300 million cubic feet per day.
The Egyptian ministry of petrol declined to comment.
Cairo has yet to resume pumping since a Sinai explosion cut supplies on November 28, marking the ninth attack on supply line since the beginning of the year and the third in less than a month.
The most recent attacks came amidst assurances by Egyptian authorities that an increased military presence in the Sinai Peninsula combined with the arrest of several jihadists allegedly behind the spate of attacks would lead to the security of the pipeline.
According to sources at E-Gas, one of the two firms that oversee the 400-kilometre Arab Gas Pipeline - which also supplies Israel - repairs have faced “unexpected” delays leading to the prolonged disruption, which has forced the Kingdom’s power plants onto their fuel reserves at a cost of some JD3 million per day.
Economists say the series of attacks have had a direct impact on Jordan, with the series of disruptions pushing the national energy bill to record levels - over JD4 billion - and expected to widen the National Electric Power Company’s budget deficit to JD1.4 billion by the end of the year.
“For months NEPCO has covered the difference in price between natural gas and heavy oil, but this burden has become unsustainable,” NEPCO General Manager Ghaleb Maabreh recently told The Jordan Times.
According to officials, a ministerial team is to travel to Cairo “soon” to review the issue of gas supplies with their Egyptian counterparts before Jordan formally moves to end its decade-long reliance on Egyptian gas.
Meanwhile, Hiyari said talks are intensifying with Iraq and several Arab Gulf states over the potential of importing natural and liquid gas over the next decade as Jordan attempts to develop domestic energy sources including oil shale and nuclear power.
Despite the renewed efforts to secure additional energy sources, officials say it will take up to two years from the signing of any agreement before Jordan can benefit from a new energy market due to infrastructure requirements.
Should Jordan decide to end its decade-long reliance on Egyptian gas supplies, Hiyari said the government will resort to the international energy market to maintain electricity generation in parallel with its drive to secure additional energy sources.
“We will have no problem meeting the needs of electricity plants needs with oil and diesel during this period,” Hiyari said.
Energy officials privately conceded that the move will impact electricity tariffs as heavy fuel oil and diesel are much costlier than Egyptian gas imports, which Jordan previously received at prices of less than half the international market rate.
Sources claim the government has previously hesitated to formally end the country’s gas deal with Egypt for fear of raising electricity tariffs at a time of popular unrest over a struggling economy and a stalled political reform drive.
“Officials have finally come to the decision they can no longer wait around for the Egyptian situation to improve,” said an energy official who was not authorised to speak to the press.
“They have come to the terms that Jordan can no longer rely on subsidised energy.”
While an added economic burden for citizens, industry observers say the move away from Egyptian gas will serve as a boost to Jordanian oil shale, which experts say is cost competitive with unsubsidised natural gas, and renewable energy, which advocates claim has long been neglected in favour of subsidised fossil fuels.
Despite the recent boost in investments in the alternative energy sector, Jordan will not see the production of electricity from oil shale before 2016, while the first large-scale renewable energy project, a 90-megawatt wind farm south of Shobak, is not expected to come online before 2014.
Observers say uncertainty over Egyptian gas has elevated energy from a policy concern to an issue of national security for Jordan, which currently imports 98 per cent of its energy needs at a cost of 23 per cent of the gross domestic product.
Jordan’s Islamists call for ‘salvation gov’t’
December 17th, 2011
By Taylor Luck
Source: Jordan Times
THE JORDANIAN ISLAMIST movement has called for the formation of an emergency government to carry out “urgent reforms”, as the Muslim Brotherhood reiterated its demands for wider constitutional amendments.
Following a meeting of its executive branch late Wednesday, the Islamic Action Front (IMF), the Muslim Brotherhood’s political branch, called for a “national salvation government” to overcome political, economic and social “crises” currently facing the Kingdom.
Islamists urged Prime Minister Awn Khasawneh to head a government representing the interests of various political and social forces in the Kingdom to reduce the role of security services in public life, push through constitutional reform and draft a new elections law.
According to IAF politburo chief Zaki Bani Rsheid, the salvation government should be entrusted with “paving the way” for elections and wider political reforms which the movement claims have been “stalled” for nearly 11 months.
Islamist leaders claim that a recent spike in social violence and ongoing weekly protests are “warning signs” that the Kingdom cannot afford further delays in implementing political and economic reforms.
“If the government does not take immediate measures to alleviate the situation, we believe Jordan is entering a dangerous phase,” warned Hamzah Mansour, IAF secretary general.
“This is why we push for a national salvation government to restore the public’s trust in the political process.”
The demand marks the closest the movement has come to criticising the government of Awn Khasawneh, who reached out to the Muslim Brotherhood during the formation of his Cabinet in late October.
The statement comes amidst ongoing negotiations between Islamists and decision makers over its participation in the political process - widely viewed by officials and observers alike as key to the legitimacy of any upcoming elections.
Islamists have pinned their participation to a series of demands, including wider constitutional reforms guaranteeing an elected government, protecting the Lower House against dissolution, an elections law relying on proportional representation and the dissolution of the State Security Court.
According to the movement, the demand for a salvation government does not represent a break from its reform demands or criticism of the Khasawneh government, but rather a policy demand stemming from a growing “concern” for the domestic situation in Jordan.
“We are noticing that from the economy to the social sphere, the situation in Jordan is getting tenser day after day,” Bani Rsheid told The Jordan Times.
“We don’t want slogans or rhetoric, we want immediate action.”
In its statement, the movement also staked its position on the latest domestic and international issues, weighing in on issues ranging from the protection of Islamic sites in Jerusalem to the demands of disgruntled municipal employees in Jneid.
The movement expressed concerns over the minister of finance’s previously announced intentions to raise water, electricity and fuel tariffs, warning against measures that will affect average citizens which it claims are already facing the negative impact of a struggling economy.
“We need officials to find ways to raise funds other than raising the prices of basic goods that affect all citizens,” Mansour said.
The Islamist movement also welcomed the statements of His Majesty King Abdullah and Khasawneh earlier this month stressing that “no one is above the law”, urging for the Anti-Corruption Commission to refer all corruption cases to court in “transparency and justice”.
In its statement, the IAF condemned the attack on the home of MP Hamad Hajaya and the manner in which security services treated protesters who closed the Desert Highway in the Qatraneh area to demand the reclamation of wajihat - state-owned lands allocated for various tribes during the Ottoman era for grazing and habitation purposes.
The Islamist movement also called on the government to take action against Syrian embassy cadre in Amman who they claimed “broke the law and diplomatic norms” earlier this week by using physical force against Syrian nationals whom Damascus claimed stormed its embassy.
By Taylor Luck
Source: Jordan Times
THE JORDANIAN ISLAMIST movement has called for the formation of an emergency government to carry out “urgent reforms”, as the Muslim Brotherhood reiterated its demands for wider constitutional amendments.
Following a meeting of its executive branch late Wednesday, the Islamic Action Front (IMF), the Muslim Brotherhood’s political branch, called for a “national salvation government” to overcome political, economic and social “crises” currently facing the Kingdom.
Islamists urged Prime Minister Awn Khasawneh to head a government representing the interests of various political and social forces in the Kingdom to reduce the role of security services in public life, push through constitutional reform and draft a new elections law.
According to IAF politburo chief Zaki Bani Rsheid, the salvation government should be entrusted with “paving the way” for elections and wider political reforms which the movement claims have been “stalled” for nearly 11 months.
Islamist leaders claim that a recent spike in social violence and ongoing weekly protests are “warning signs” that the Kingdom cannot afford further delays in implementing political and economic reforms.
“If the government does not take immediate measures to alleviate the situation, we believe Jordan is entering a dangerous phase,” warned Hamzah Mansour, IAF secretary general.
“This is why we push for a national salvation government to restore the public’s trust in the political process.”
The demand marks the closest the movement has come to criticising the government of Awn Khasawneh, who reached out to the Muslim Brotherhood during the formation of his Cabinet in late October.
The statement comes amidst ongoing negotiations between Islamists and decision makers over its participation in the political process - widely viewed by officials and observers alike as key to the legitimacy of any upcoming elections.
Islamists have pinned their participation to a series of demands, including wider constitutional reforms guaranteeing an elected government, protecting the Lower House against dissolution, an elections law relying on proportional representation and the dissolution of the State Security Court.
According to the movement, the demand for a salvation government does not represent a break from its reform demands or criticism of the Khasawneh government, but rather a policy demand stemming from a growing “concern” for the domestic situation in Jordan.
“We are noticing that from the economy to the social sphere, the situation in Jordan is getting tenser day after day,” Bani Rsheid told The Jordan Times.
“We don’t want slogans or rhetoric, we want immediate action.”
In its statement, the movement also staked its position on the latest domestic and international issues, weighing in on issues ranging from the protection of Islamic sites in Jerusalem to the demands of disgruntled municipal employees in Jneid.
The movement expressed concerns over the minister of finance’s previously announced intentions to raise water, electricity and fuel tariffs, warning against measures that will affect average citizens which it claims are already facing the negative impact of a struggling economy.
“We need officials to find ways to raise funds other than raising the prices of basic goods that affect all citizens,” Mansour said.
The Islamist movement also welcomed the statements of His Majesty King Abdullah and Khasawneh earlier this month stressing that “no one is above the law”, urging for the Anti-Corruption Commission to refer all corruption cases to court in “transparency and justice”.
In its statement, the IAF condemned the attack on the home of MP Hamad Hajaya and the manner in which security services treated protesters who closed the Desert Highway in the Qatraneh area to demand the reclamation of wajihat - state-owned lands allocated for various tribes during the Ottoman era for grazing and habitation purposes.
The Islamist movement also called on the government to take action against Syrian embassy cadre in Amman who they claimed “broke the law and diplomatic norms” earlier this week by using physical force against Syrian nationals whom Damascus claimed stormed its embassy.
Pakistan PM seeks to dispel rumors of army rift
4 hours ago
By CHRIS BRUMMITT - Associated Press
Source:Yahoo News Maktoob
ISLAMABAD (AP) — Pakistan's prime minister dismissed speculation of a rift between the government and the military over a secret memo sent to Washington seeking its help in averting a supposed military coup, saying the country was committed to democracy.
Political tensions have soared in recent days as the Supreme Court begins a hearing into the circumstance surrounding the memo. The absence of President Asif Ali Zardari, recovering from a likely "mini stroke" in his Dubai home with no word on his return, has only added to rumors that the current civilian administration is in possible fatal trouble.
Zardari's plentiful critics are hoping the scandal will lead to his ouster, and delighted in portraying his trip to Dubai on Dec. 6 as a flight from the fallout from the memo. The president's aides have denied that, and most independent analysts believe the veteran politician, who has outlasted numerous predictions of his demise since taking office in 2008, will ride it out.
Late Friday, Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani met with army chief Gen. Ashfaq Pervez Kayani to discuss the memo.
Gilani said in a statement he rejected the nation of a "standoff" between the army and the government.
"The government of Pakistan and its institutions remain committed to their constitutional roles and obligations to a democratic and prosperous future for Pakistan," he said.
Tensions between the army and the government could complicate American attempts to rebuild ties with a country seen by many U.S. officials as key to shepherding peace in Afghanistan. A raid by the U.S.-led coalition in Afghanistan in late November killed 24 Pakistani soldiers, hammering relations already strained by American suspicions that Islamabad is playing both sides in the Afghan war and virulent anti-U.S. sentiments inside Pakistan.
Pakistan has a long history of army coups or behind the scenes meddling by the generals to engineer pliant regimes, often with the support of the judiciary. That has left the country's 180 million people specially receptive to the idea that the collapse of the government is just around the corner.
By CHRIS BRUMMITT - Associated Press
Source:Yahoo News Maktoob
ISLAMABAD (AP) — Pakistan's prime minister dismissed speculation of a rift between the government and the military over a secret memo sent to Washington seeking its help in averting a supposed military coup, saying the country was committed to democracy.
Political tensions have soared in recent days as the Supreme Court begins a hearing into the circumstance surrounding the memo. The absence of President Asif Ali Zardari, recovering from a likely "mini stroke" in his Dubai home with no word on his return, has only added to rumors that the current civilian administration is in possible fatal trouble.
Zardari's plentiful critics are hoping the scandal will lead to his ouster, and delighted in portraying his trip to Dubai on Dec. 6 as a flight from the fallout from the memo. The president's aides have denied that, and most independent analysts believe the veteran politician, who has outlasted numerous predictions of his demise since taking office in 2008, will ride it out.
Late Friday, Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani met with army chief Gen. Ashfaq Pervez Kayani to discuss the memo.
Gilani said in a statement he rejected the nation of a "standoff" between the army and the government.
"The government of Pakistan and its institutions remain committed to their constitutional roles and obligations to a democratic and prosperous future for Pakistan," he said.
Tensions between the army and the government could complicate American attempts to rebuild ties with a country seen by many U.S. officials as key to shepherding peace in Afghanistan. A raid by the U.S.-led coalition in Afghanistan in late November killed 24 Pakistani soldiers, hammering relations already strained by American suspicions that Islamabad is playing both sides in the Afghan war and virulent anti-U.S. sentiments inside Pakistan.
Pakistan has a long history of army coups or behind the scenes meddling by the generals to engineer pliant regimes, often with the support of the judiciary. That has left the country's 180 million people specially receptive to the idea that the collapse of the government is just around the corner.
Arab League sees 'positive signs' from Syria
1 hour 32 minutes ago
By Sezayi Erken | AFP
Source:Yahoo News Maktoob
The Arab League expects the Damascus regime to sign up "soon" to an observer mission intended to monitor the protection of civilians, the bloc's number two Ahmed Ben Helli said on Saturday.
"There are positive signs... I expect the signing will happen soon," Ahmed Ben Helli told AFP ahead of a meeting of an Arab League ministerial commission in Qatar.
"It will not be today," he said, before the meeting, which had originally been scheduled to take place in Cairo alongside a now indefinitely postponed emergency foreign ministers' meeting.
Announcing the postponement late on Thursday, Ben Helli said negotiations would continue with the Syrian government to try to convince it to implement an Arab plan to end bloodshed which has raged for nine months since it unleashed a deadly crackdown on anti-government protests.
The Arab League approved a raft of sanctions against the Damascus authorities on November 27 to punish their failure to heed an ultimatum to admit the observers but Syria said on Sunday that it would allow the mission in on certain conditions.
In a letter to the bloc's secretary general, Nabil al-Arabi, Foreign Minister Walid Muallem set a number of terms, notably the withdrawal of the sanctions package.
Ben Helli said on Thursday that the League was still holding talks with Syria on its offer.
On Friday, hundreds of thousands turned out across Syria for rallies called under the slogan: "The Arab League is killing us -- enough deadlines," in protest at the bloc's failure to take a tougher stance.
By Sezayi Erken | AFP
Source:Yahoo News Maktoob
The Arab League expects the Damascus regime to sign up "soon" to an observer mission intended to monitor the protection of civilians, the bloc's number two Ahmed Ben Helli said on Saturday.
"There are positive signs... I expect the signing will happen soon," Ahmed Ben Helli told AFP ahead of a meeting of an Arab League ministerial commission in Qatar.
"It will not be today," he said, before the meeting, which had originally been scheduled to take place in Cairo alongside a now indefinitely postponed emergency foreign ministers' meeting.
Announcing the postponement late on Thursday, Ben Helli said negotiations would continue with the Syrian government to try to convince it to implement an Arab plan to end bloodshed which has raged for nine months since it unleashed a deadly crackdown on anti-government protests.
The Arab League approved a raft of sanctions against the Damascus authorities on November 27 to punish their failure to heed an ultimatum to admit the observers but Syria said on Sunday that it would allow the mission in on certain conditions.
In a letter to the bloc's secretary general, Nabil al-Arabi, Foreign Minister Walid Muallem set a number of terms, notably the withdrawal of the sanctions package.
Ben Helli said on Thursday that the League was still holding talks with Syria on its offer.
On Friday, hundreds of thousands turned out across Syria for rallies called under the slogan: "The Arab League is killing us -- enough deadlines," in protest at the bloc's failure to take a tougher stance.
Tunisia president asks for six-month political truce
Dec 15, 2011
By Tarek Amara | Reuters
Source:Yahoo News Maktoob
TUNIS (Reuters) - Tunisia's new president on Wednesday asked for a six-month political truce and a moratorium on strikes and protests, warning that otherwise the country would be committing "collective suicide."
Tunisia electrified the Arab world when it overthrew its autocratic leader in January, but since then the caretaker authorities have been buffeted by social unrest, political turmoil and rows over the role of Islam in the political system.
"I appeal to all the Tunisian people to give us a political and social truce, just for six months," Moncef Marzouki, a former political prisoner installed as president this week, said in a interview on state television.
"A political truce including all the political parties ... (and) a social truce by immediately stopping all sit-ins and strikes," said Marzouki. "If we continue like this, it will be a collective suicide."
"If things aren't working out within six months, I will submit my resignation," said Marzouki.
In Tunisia's first ever democratic election in October, voters handed victory to the moderate Islamist Ennahda party. Its nominee, Hamadi Jbeli, will be prime minister, the most powerful post.
Other top positions will be shared out among Ennahda's two junior coalition partners, Marzouki's Congress for the Republic and the left-wing Ettakatol party.
The new leaders will hold power for a year while a new constitution is drawn up and fresh elections are prepared.
A cabinet line-up is expected to be announced in the coming days. Three sources within the coalition said the finance ministry would go to Khayam Turki, a businessman who was put forward by Ettakatol.
IMPATIENT FOR CHANGE
Since its revolution, Western leaders have hailed the former French colony as a beacon of democracy in the Middle East, but the new authorities are struggling to appease Tunisians who are impatient for change.
There have been hundreds of protests in the past few months, most of them over poor living standards and high unemployment. Some have turned into riots, forcing security forces to fire into the air and impose curfews.
There has also been mounting tension between hardline Islamists, who want to ban the sale of alcohol and the mixing of the sexes in public places, and secularists who believe their liberal way of life is under threat.
Turki, the man tipped to become finance minister, was educated in Tunisia and France and studied at business school, his friend Jamel Touri told Reuters.
And though Ettakatol is known for its socialist foundations, Touri, who is also an official in the party, said the 40-year-old diplomat's son was an economic liberal.
"He is for economic openness and he is in favor of economic reforms to promote openness," Touri said.
(Reporting by Tarek Amara; Writing by Christian Lowe; Editing by Ben Harding)
By Tarek Amara | Reuters
Source:Yahoo News Maktoob
TUNIS (Reuters) - Tunisia's new president on Wednesday asked for a six-month political truce and a moratorium on strikes and protests, warning that otherwise the country would be committing "collective suicide."
Tunisia electrified the Arab world when it overthrew its autocratic leader in January, but since then the caretaker authorities have been buffeted by social unrest, political turmoil and rows over the role of Islam in the political system.
"I appeal to all the Tunisian people to give us a political and social truce, just for six months," Moncef Marzouki, a former political prisoner installed as president this week, said in a interview on state television.
"A political truce including all the political parties ... (and) a social truce by immediately stopping all sit-ins and strikes," said Marzouki. "If we continue like this, it will be a collective suicide."
"If things aren't working out within six months, I will submit my resignation," said Marzouki.
In Tunisia's first ever democratic election in October, voters handed victory to the moderate Islamist Ennahda party. Its nominee, Hamadi Jbeli, will be prime minister, the most powerful post.
Other top positions will be shared out among Ennahda's two junior coalition partners, Marzouki's Congress for the Republic and the left-wing Ettakatol party.
The new leaders will hold power for a year while a new constitution is drawn up and fresh elections are prepared.
A cabinet line-up is expected to be announced in the coming days. Three sources within the coalition said the finance ministry would go to Khayam Turki, a businessman who was put forward by Ettakatol.
IMPATIENT FOR CHANGE
Since its revolution, Western leaders have hailed the former French colony as a beacon of democracy in the Middle East, but the new authorities are struggling to appease Tunisians who are impatient for change.
There have been hundreds of protests in the past few months, most of them over poor living standards and high unemployment. Some have turned into riots, forcing security forces to fire into the air and impose curfews.
There has also been mounting tension between hardline Islamists, who want to ban the sale of alcohol and the mixing of the sexes in public places, and secularists who believe their liberal way of life is under threat.
Turki, the man tipped to become finance minister, was educated in Tunisia and France and studied at business school, his friend Jamel Touri told Reuters.
And though Ettakatol is known for its socialist foundations, Touri, who is also an official in the party, said the 40-year-old diplomat's son was an economic liberal.
"He is for economic openness and he is in favor of economic reforms to promote openness," Touri said.
(Reporting by Tarek Amara; Writing by Christian Lowe; Editing by Ben Harding)
Thursday, December 15, 2011
Special Report: The maverick behind Merkel
Dec 14, 2011
By Noah Barkin and Erik Kirschbaum
Source:Reuters
(Reuters) - It was approaching midnight at a yacht club on the French Riviera, down the road from a G20 summit. German Chancellor Angela Merkel was telling reporters about her decision to block a loan to Greece, when suddenly her finance minister interrupted to set the record straight.
Wolfgang Schaeuble told the journalists that it had been his idea to stop the flow of aid to Athens. That move had helped convince Athens to drop its controversial plans for a referendum on new austerity steps, calming financial markets. Schaeuble had personally delivered the news in a phone call to his Greek counterpart Evangelos Venizelos, in hospital at the time with stomach pains.
"Yes, indeed it was the finance minister who stopped the payment," a somewhat startled Merkel acknowledged. "He was the one who reacted first."
Reporters glanced at each other in surprise. Here was Europe's most powerful leader being called out in public by one of her ministers. Instead of rebuking Schaeuble, Merkel had deferred to him, admitting he was right.
The unusual exchange in early November gives a glimpse into the complex relationship between Merkel and Schaeuble. Once his deputy, Merkel is now Schaeuble's boss. Their bond has survived two decades of slights and reversals -- and it is now central to the euro-zone debt crisis.
Germany is Europe's pre-eminent power, and France is No. 2. For months, markets and the media have focused on the link between Merkel and French President Nicolas Sarkozy as the key to saving the common currency from a breakup. The media have dubbed the pair "Merkozy."
But an examination of the relationship between the German leader and her outspoken minister -- whose contrasting views on Europe mirror tensions in the broader electorate -- suggests their give-and-take may be just as crucial to the continent's future.
"The chancellor can count on my loyalty," Schaeuble said in an interview with Reuters. "But that doesn't mean I'm going to keep quiet, that I'm going to be easy. I have the freedom to do what I think is right."
Schaeuble, a 69-year old political veteran, has been confined to a wheelchair since being shot by a deranged man a week after German reunification. Long committed to the cause of European unity, he has heavily influenced Berlin's response to the crisis. Some European insiders say he is perhaps the only politician capable of pushing Merkel, a risk-averse politician from ex-communist East Germany, to adopt the policies which may be needed to save the currency bloc.
"I think Schaeuble will be one of the key architects of a solution for the euro zone crisis in the coming weeks," said Klaus Tschuetscher, the prime minister and finance minister of Liechtenstein. "He is renowned and respected for tossing out ideas without worrying what the political reaction might be. I don't think the value of that should be underestimated."
IDEA FACTORY
Since the euro zone's troubles erupted just over two years ago, Schaeuble's finance ministry has been a veritable factory of ideas. His fingerprints are on many of the big decisions taken by the broader bloc.
At the heart of the crisis are huge debts racked up by euro-zone governments and a spreading belief that investors in those countries' bonds won't get paid back in full. In the early stages of the crisis, Schaeuble proposed creating a "European Monetary Fund" to shore up weakened members. At the time, the idea sounded radical. Merkel quickly overruled it, insisting the Washington-based International Monetary Fund should be involved in any euro-zone rescues.
But a year and a half later, the bloc has created a permanent rescue facility -- the European Stability Mechanism -- that in the end looks likely to closely resemble Schaeuble's monetary fund. Funded by euro-zone governments, the European Stability Mechanism will provide loans to members in financial trouble.
In June, Schaeuble made waves by writing to his euro-zone colleagues to demand that private holders of Greek bonds make a substantial contribution to a debt relief package. He suggested this could be achieved by a bond swap that would reduce the amount of debt the Greek government had to pay back. Many dismissed the idea as unrealistic, but the debt-swap idea has now been adopted by the euro zone.
Although Merkel was warned ahead of time that Schaeuble was sending the letter, she did not see it beforehand, her aides say -- a sign of just how much freedom the finance minister has, especially compared with other ministers.
"Merkel knew from the beginning that if she made him finance minister, her control over him would be limited, that he would have his own ideas and speak out on them," one of Merkel's top advisers said. "He is an anomaly in the cabinet."
To politicians and investors outside Germany, Schaeuble's proposals have sometimes been a source of confusion: It's not always clear whether they have the backing of the Chancellery.
In March, for example, the finance minister struck a deal with his euro-zone counterparts on funding for the European Stability Mechanism, only for Merkel to veto it and re-open negotiations days later.
But Schaeuble's freedom also works to Merkel's advantage. He can float ideas while she gauges how euro-zone partners and markets react before committing to them. It's also part of the "bottom-up" structure of the German government, where ministries are encouraged to come up with proposals for the cabinet to consider.
"Everyone in the government has a role," said Schaeuble in his spartan office in the finance ministry, a Nazi-era structure that housed Hermann Goering's aviation ministry during World War Two. "I've been in politics for a long time, I'm relatively old, and that gives me a certain amount of independence."
KOHL'S HEIR APPARENT
In some ways Schaeuble's freedom is made starker by his obvious physical limitations. The assassination attempt nearly succeeded. A little over a year ago, complications from two decades in a wheelchair were forcing him into hospital on a regular basis, and his doctors told him to slow down. In September 2010, after missing crucial summit meetings, he told Merkel he may need to quit because of his health. The chancellor told him to take a month off but urged him to stay.
Now he says he feels better. He has gained weight and resumed two-to-three hour handbike workouts in Grunewald Forest in western Berlin to stay fit.
"I was sicker in parts of 2010 than I wanted to believe," Schaeuble said. "She said she wanted me to keep on doing the job if that was possible. She told me to get better and stay in my post."
Merkel and Schaeuble first met in the months after the Berlin Wall fell in 1989. A lawyer by profession, he was heir apparent to West German Chancellor Helmut Kohl, and considered by many to be the greatest political talent of his generation. She was a shy 35-year-old from the other side of the Wall, working as a press spokeswoman for Lothar de Maiziere, East Germany's caretaker leader in the run-up to reunification.
Within half a year of their first encounter, Schaeuble's world was turned upside down.
It was October 1990 and the newly united Germany was in a buoyant mood. West Germany had just won the soccer World Cup. The country was months away from the first pan-German election in more than half a century. As the 20th century entered its final decade, a nation that had been weighed down by two world wars, hyper-inflation, a murderous Nazi dictatorship and decades of Cold War division could finally look forward with optimism.
Schaeuble, then interior minister, was leaving a campaign stop at a tavern in the town of Oppenau, near the French border, when a 37-year-old man pulled a gun and fired three shots, hitting Schaeuble in the face and spine.
"I can't feel my legs anymore," he is reported to have said before losing consciousness.
He was flown to a university medical centre in his birthplace of Freiburg, where doctors worked through the night to save his life. Kohl visited his right-hand man in the intensive care unit. At an impromptu news conference a few hours later, the burly chancellor choked back tears.
Schaeuble not only survived but he returned to his job in Bonn a few months later, despite appeals from his family that he quit politics. He looked frail, but Kohl kept faith in his loyal ally. To Germans who questioned whether a paraplegic could run the country, Kohl would often reply that Franklin Roosevelt had led the United States from a wheelchair through the Great Depression and World War Two.
His trust paid off. After Kohl scraped into office again in 1994, it was Schaeuble who worked behind the scenes to keep his narrow centre-right majority intact.
"He kept the coalition majority together," recalls Peter Hausmann, Kohl's spokesman in the 1990s and now editor of a newspaper in Bavaria. "It was a slim majority but he kept the discipline up and everyone in line."
FROM SCANDAL TO POWER
If Kohl had stepped down before the 1998 election and allowed Schaeuble to run against Social Democrat Gerhard Schroeder, the feisty lawyer from Freiburg might have become chancellor. But Kohl was intent on leading the country into the single currency, an ambitious project that he had pushed over the objections of many compatriots, and ran for an unprecedented fifth term.
Kohl lost to Schroeder, and Schaeuble took his place as head of the conservative Christian Democratic Union. Schaeuble named the up-and-coming Angela Merkel as his deputy.
It was a pairing that would last less than a year and a half. By December 1999, Kohl was caught up in a campaign finance scandal. Merkel penned an article for the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung newspaper which hit German politics like a tsunami. In it, she urged the party to move on "without its old war horse" Kohl.
The godfather of the Christian Democrats could not believe the cautious young protégée he had plucked from obscurity could have written the article without the approval of her boss, Schaeuble.
Kohl launched a withering behind-the-scenes campaign to undermine the man he had once anointed his successor. Less than two months later, after discrepancies emerged in Schaeuble's story about a party donation, he was forced to resign.
Merkel was left standing. Hailed as the "clean face" of the Christian Democrats, she was catapulted into the party leadership.
"It was an extremely difficult situation for Schaeuble," said a former minister in Kohl's government who witnessed the drama at first hand and knows both Schaeuble and Merkel well. "At the time there was a strong yearning in the CDU for something new, for someone who wasn't in the Kohl orbit like Schaeuble. She profited from the Kohl scandal."
In "My Way," a 2004 book of interviews with Merkel, she confirms that Schaeuble did not know about the article before it was published. One reason for writing it, she says, was to give him the freedom to run a party over which Kohl still cast a long shadow.
Schaeuble said he does not believe Merkel set out to topple him when she wrote the piece. He describes their working relationship as good, while making clear the two are not friends. He played down the significance of other slights over the years, such as Merkel's refusal to back him for the German presidency in 2004.
In his 2010 biography of Merkel, Gerd Langguth describes how Schaeuble waited in vain for weeks to speak with her about the presidential post he coveted, only to get the cold shoulder. During a joint trip to Turkey at the time, the book says, Merkel made sure she was never alone in a room with Schaeuble to discuss the matter.
A year later, Merkel unseated Schroeder to become the first woman chancellor in German history. She named Schaeuble interior minister, preferring to lock him into her government rather than
give him a role outside the cabinet, such as parliamentary floor leader, where he might have proven dangerous.
When she was re-elected chancellor in the autumn of 2009, just as the first wave of the global financial crisis receded, Schaeuble was Merkel's surprise choice to run the finance ministry. His mastery of financial details during coalition talks convinced her he was the right person for a post that had been expected to go to her coalition partner, the Free Democrats, or her close Christian Democratic ally, Thomas de Maiziere.
"IMPOSSIBLE BECOMES POSSIBLE"
Since then, Schaeuble has emerged as Merkel's most important minister and a respected shaper of policy in Europe at a time of unprecedented financial turmoil.
He is a French speaker who maintains excellent ties with France and knows President Nicolas Sarkozy from their days as interior ministers. At the Cannes summit, when Merkel could not make a crucial meeting of euro zone leaders because of a previously arranged meeting with U.S. President Barack Obama, Sarkozy pressed her to send Schaeuble in her place. She agreed.
It was Schaeuble who pushed hard for the Christian Democratic Union to demonstrate its commitment to Europe at a party congress held in Leipzig last month under the banner "For Europe, For Germany." In a crucial vote in parliament in late September, he also helped convince party allies to back enhancements to the euro zone's rescue fund, averting a government crisis for Merkel.
But the differences between Schaeuble and Merkel on Europe are sometimes hard to hide.
While Merkel seems focused on limiting the damage to Germany from the debt crisis, Schaeuble sees the crisis as an opportunity to complete the political integration of Europe that was missing when the euro was launched.
In public, he sticks to the party line on controversial crisis-fighting proposals. When asked last month whether he could envision common euro-zone bonds -- an idea Merkel staunchly opposes -- Schaeuble's initial reaction was: "Now I need to be careful to say the same thing as the chancellor." He then went on to say it was too early to consider such a step.
But people who know him say Schaeuble would probably be ready to back such ideas, if the alternative was a breakup of the currency bloc.
"He's for euro bonds," said the former Kohl cabinet minister who worked with both for years. "He can't come out and say that, but if you look carefully at what he's been saying he won't exclude euro bonds like some of the others. He's dropped some clear hints with his language."
EU leaders agreed at a summit meeting in Brussels last week to press ahead with forming the "fiscal union" Schaeuble has long favored, under which euro-zone members relinquish control over budget policy. They also freed up more funds for the IMF to help troubled euro states like Italy and Spain, and decided to bring forward the launch of their permanent rescue fund by a year.
But these steps may be insufficient to stop the rot. And pressure on Germany to take bolder action could rise in the coming weeks.
If a euro-zone breakup looms, Schaeuble will again have to decide whether to speak up and challenge Merkel, as he did light-heartedly in Cannes. Like Dick Cheney under U.S. President George W. Bush, he has nothing to lose, no higher post to shoot for, only his vision of what needs to be done.
"When things get really difficult ... suddenly solutions which seemed impossible become possible," Schaeuble said.
"Because of this, the crisis represents an opportunity. I'm not saying that I enjoy being in a crisis, but I'm not worried. Europe always moved forward in times of crisis. Sometimes you need a little pressure for certain decisions to be taken."
(Editing by Sara Ledwith and Simon Robinson)
By Noah Barkin and Erik Kirschbaum
Source:Reuters
(Reuters) - It was approaching midnight at a yacht club on the French Riviera, down the road from a G20 summit. German Chancellor Angela Merkel was telling reporters about her decision to block a loan to Greece, when suddenly her finance minister interrupted to set the record straight.
Wolfgang Schaeuble told the journalists that it had been his idea to stop the flow of aid to Athens. That move had helped convince Athens to drop its controversial plans for a referendum on new austerity steps, calming financial markets. Schaeuble had personally delivered the news in a phone call to his Greek counterpart Evangelos Venizelos, in hospital at the time with stomach pains.
"Yes, indeed it was the finance minister who stopped the payment," a somewhat startled Merkel acknowledged. "He was the one who reacted first."
Reporters glanced at each other in surprise. Here was Europe's most powerful leader being called out in public by one of her ministers. Instead of rebuking Schaeuble, Merkel had deferred to him, admitting he was right.
The unusual exchange in early November gives a glimpse into the complex relationship between Merkel and Schaeuble. Once his deputy, Merkel is now Schaeuble's boss. Their bond has survived two decades of slights and reversals -- and it is now central to the euro-zone debt crisis.
Germany is Europe's pre-eminent power, and France is No. 2. For months, markets and the media have focused on the link between Merkel and French President Nicolas Sarkozy as the key to saving the common currency from a breakup. The media have dubbed the pair "Merkozy."
But an examination of the relationship between the German leader and her outspoken minister -- whose contrasting views on Europe mirror tensions in the broader electorate -- suggests their give-and-take may be just as crucial to the continent's future.
"The chancellor can count on my loyalty," Schaeuble said in an interview with Reuters. "But that doesn't mean I'm going to keep quiet, that I'm going to be easy. I have the freedom to do what I think is right."
Schaeuble, a 69-year old political veteran, has been confined to a wheelchair since being shot by a deranged man a week after German reunification. Long committed to the cause of European unity, he has heavily influenced Berlin's response to the crisis. Some European insiders say he is perhaps the only politician capable of pushing Merkel, a risk-averse politician from ex-communist East Germany, to adopt the policies which may be needed to save the currency bloc.
"I think Schaeuble will be one of the key architects of a solution for the euro zone crisis in the coming weeks," said Klaus Tschuetscher, the prime minister and finance minister of Liechtenstein. "He is renowned and respected for tossing out ideas without worrying what the political reaction might be. I don't think the value of that should be underestimated."
IDEA FACTORY
Since the euro zone's troubles erupted just over two years ago, Schaeuble's finance ministry has been a veritable factory of ideas. His fingerprints are on many of the big decisions taken by the broader bloc.
At the heart of the crisis are huge debts racked up by euro-zone governments and a spreading belief that investors in those countries' bonds won't get paid back in full. In the early stages of the crisis, Schaeuble proposed creating a "European Monetary Fund" to shore up weakened members. At the time, the idea sounded radical. Merkel quickly overruled it, insisting the Washington-based International Monetary Fund should be involved in any euro-zone rescues.
But a year and a half later, the bloc has created a permanent rescue facility -- the European Stability Mechanism -- that in the end looks likely to closely resemble Schaeuble's monetary fund. Funded by euro-zone governments, the European Stability Mechanism will provide loans to members in financial trouble.
In June, Schaeuble made waves by writing to his euro-zone colleagues to demand that private holders of Greek bonds make a substantial contribution to a debt relief package. He suggested this could be achieved by a bond swap that would reduce the amount of debt the Greek government had to pay back. Many dismissed the idea as unrealistic, but the debt-swap idea has now been adopted by the euro zone.
Although Merkel was warned ahead of time that Schaeuble was sending the letter, she did not see it beforehand, her aides say -- a sign of just how much freedom the finance minister has, especially compared with other ministers.
"Merkel knew from the beginning that if she made him finance minister, her control over him would be limited, that he would have his own ideas and speak out on them," one of Merkel's top advisers said. "He is an anomaly in the cabinet."
To politicians and investors outside Germany, Schaeuble's proposals have sometimes been a source of confusion: It's not always clear whether they have the backing of the Chancellery.
In March, for example, the finance minister struck a deal with his euro-zone counterparts on funding for the European Stability Mechanism, only for Merkel to veto it and re-open negotiations days later.
But Schaeuble's freedom also works to Merkel's advantage. He can float ideas while she gauges how euro-zone partners and markets react before committing to them. It's also part of the "bottom-up" structure of the German government, where ministries are encouraged to come up with proposals for the cabinet to consider.
"Everyone in the government has a role," said Schaeuble in his spartan office in the finance ministry, a Nazi-era structure that housed Hermann Goering's aviation ministry during World War Two. "I've been in politics for a long time, I'm relatively old, and that gives me a certain amount of independence."
KOHL'S HEIR APPARENT
In some ways Schaeuble's freedom is made starker by his obvious physical limitations. The assassination attempt nearly succeeded. A little over a year ago, complications from two decades in a wheelchair were forcing him into hospital on a regular basis, and his doctors told him to slow down. In September 2010, after missing crucial summit meetings, he told Merkel he may need to quit because of his health. The chancellor told him to take a month off but urged him to stay.
Now he says he feels better. He has gained weight and resumed two-to-three hour handbike workouts in Grunewald Forest in western Berlin to stay fit.
"I was sicker in parts of 2010 than I wanted to believe," Schaeuble said. "She said she wanted me to keep on doing the job if that was possible. She told me to get better and stay in my post."
Merkel and Schaeuble first met in the months after the Berlin Wall fell in 1989. A lawyer by profession, he was heir apparent to West German Chancellor Helmut Kohl, and considered by many to be the greatest political talent of his generation. She was a shy 35-year-old from the other side of the Wall, working as a press spokeswoman for Lothar de Maiziere, East Germany's caretaker leader in the run-up to reunification.
Within half a year of their first encounter, Schaeuble's world was turned upside down.
It was October 1990 and the newly united Germany was in a buoyant mood. West Germany had just won the soccer World Cup. The country was months away from the first pan-German election in more than half a century. As the 20th century entered its final decade, a nation that had been weighed down by two world wars, hyper-inflation, a murderous Nazi dictatorship and decades of Cold War division could finally look forward with optimism.
Schaeuble, then interior minister, was leaving a campaign stop at a tavern in the town of Oppenau, near the French border, when a 37-year-old man pulled a gun and fired three shots, hitting Schaeuble in the face and spine.
"I can't feel my legs anymore," he is reported to have said before losing consciousness.
He was flown to a university medical centre in his birthplace of Freiburg, where doctors worked through the night to save his life. Kohl visited his right-hand man in the intensive care unit. At an impromptu news conference a few hours later, the burly chancellor choked back tears.
Schaeuble not only survived but he returned to his job in Bonn a few months later, despite appeals from his family that he quit politics. He looked frail, but Kohl kept faith in his loyal ally. To Germans who questioned whether a paraplegic could run the country, Kohl would often reply that Franklin Roosevelt had led the United States from a wheelchair through the Great Depression and World War Two.
His trust paid off. After Kohl scraped into office again in 1994, it was Schaeuble who worked behind the scenes to keep his narrow centre-right majority intact.
"He kept the coalition majority together," recalls Peter Hausmann, Kohl's spokesman in the 1990s and now editor of a newspaper in Bavaria. "It was a slim majority but he kept the discipline up and everyone in line."
FROM SCANDAL TO POWER
If Kohl had stepped down before the 1998 election and allowed Schaeuble to run against Social Democrat Gerhard Schroeder, the feisty lawyer from Freiburg might have become chancellor. But Kohl was intent on leading the country into the single currency, an ambitious project that he had pushed over the objections of many compatriots, and ran for an unprecedented fifth term.
Kohl lost to Schroeder, and Schaeuble took his place as head of the conservative Christian Democratic Union. Schaeuble named the up-and-coming Angela Merkel as his deputy.
It was a pairing that would last less than a year and a half. By December 1999, Kohl was caught up in a campaign finance scandal. Merkel penned an article for the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung newspaper which hit German politics like a tsunami. In it, she urged the party to move on "without its old war horse" Kohl.
The godfather of the Christian Democrats could not believe the cautious young protégée he had plucked from obscurity could have written the article without the approval of her boss, Schaeuble.
Kohl launched a withering behind-the-scenes campaign to undermine the man he had once anointed his successor. Less than two months later, after discrepancies emerged in Schaeuble's story about a party donation, he was forced to resign.
Merkel was left standing. Hailed as the "clean face" of the Christian Democrats, she was catapulted into the party leadership.
"It was an extremely difficult situation for Schaeuble," said a former minister in Kohl's government who witnessed the drama at first hand and knows both Schaeuble and Merkel well. "At the time there was a strong yearning in the CDU for something new, for someone who wasn't in the Kohl orbit like Schaeuble. She profited from the Kohl scandal."
In "My Way," a 2004 book of interviews with Merkel, she confirms that Schaeuble did not know about the article before it was published. One reason for writing it, she says, was to give him the freedom to run a party over which Kohl still cast a long shadow.
Schaeuble said he does not believe Merkel set out to topple him when she wrote the piece. He describes their working relationship as good, while making clear the two are not friends. He played down the significance of other slights over the years, such as Merkel's refusal to back him for the German presidency in 2004.
In his 2010 biography of Merkel, Gerd Langguth describes how Schaeuble waited in vain for weeks to speak with her about the presidential post he coveted, only to get the cold shoulder. During a joint trip to Turkey at the time, the book says, Merkel made sure she was never alone in a room with Schaeuble to discuss the matter.
A year later, Merkel unseated Schroeder to become the first woman chancellor in German history. She named Schaeuble interior minister, preferring to lock him into her government rather than
give him a role outside the cabinet, such as parliamentary floor leader, where he might have proven dangerous.
When she was re-elected chancellor in the autumn of 2009, just as the first wave of the global financial crisis receded, Schaeuble was Merkel's surprise choice to run the finance ministry. His mastery of financial details during coalition talks convinced her he was the right person for a post that had been expected to go to her coalition partner, the Free Democrats, or her close Christian Democratic ally, Thomas de Maiziere.
"IMPOSSIBLE BECOMES POSSIBLE"
Since then, Schaeuble has emerged as Merkel's most important minister and a respected shaper of policy in Europe at a time of unprecedented financial turmoil.
He is a French speaker who maintains excellent ties with France and knows President Nicolas Sarkozy from their days as interior ministers. At the Cannes summit, when Merkel could not make a crucial meeting of euro zone leaders because of a previously arranged meeting with U.S. President Barack Obama, Sarkozy pressed her to send Schaeuble in her place. She agreed.
It was Schaeuble who pushed hard for the Christian Democratic Union to demonstrate its commitment to Europe at a party congress held in Leipzig last month under the banner "For Europe, For Germany." In a crucial vote in parliament in late September, he also helped convince party allies to back enhancements to the euro zone's rescue fund, averting a government crisis for Merkel.
But the differences between Schaeuble and Merkel on Europe are sometimes hard to hide.
While Merkel seems focused on limiting the damage to Germany from the debt crisis, Schaeuble sees the crisis as an opportunity to complete the political integration of Europe that was missing when the euro was launched.
In public, he sticks to the party line on controversial crisis-fighting proposals. When asked last month whether he could envision common euro-zone bonds -- an idea Merkel staunchly opposes -- Schaeuble's initial reaction was: "Now I need to be careful to say the same thing as the chancellor." He then went on to say it was too early to consider such a step.
But people who know him say Schaeuble would probably be ready to back such ideas, if the alternative was a breakup of the currency bloc.
"He's for euro bonds," said the former Kohl cabinet minister who worked with both for years. "He can't come out and say that, but if you look carefully at what he's been saying he won't exclude euro bonds like some of the others. He's dropped some clear hints with his language."
EU leaders agreed at a summit meeting in Brussels last week to press ahead with forming the "fiscal union" Schaeuble has long favored, under which euro-zone members relinquish control over budget policy. They also freed up more funds for the IMF to help troubled euro states like Italy and Spain, and decided to bring forward the launch of their permanent rescue fund by a year.
But these steps may be insufficient to stop the rot. And pressure on Germany to take bolder action could rise in the coming weeks.
If a euro-zone breakup looms, Schaeuble will again have to decide whether to speak up and challenge Merkel, as he did light-heartedly in Cannes. Like Dick Cheney under U.S. President George W. Bush, he has nothing to lose, no higher post to shoot for, only his vision of what needs to be done.
"When things get really difficult ... suddenly solutions which seemed impossible become possible," Schaeuble said.
"Because of this, the crisis represents an opportunity. I'm not saying that I enjoy being in a crisis, but I'm not worried. Europe always moved forward in times of crisis. Sometimes you need a little pressure for certain decisions to be taken."
(Editing by Sara Ledwith and Simon Robinson)
Long-term jobless eye bleak future as benefits end
Dec 11, 2011
By Lucia Mutikani
Source: Yahoo News
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - George Parks has been out of work for 21 months and his unemployment benefits will run out at the end of the month.
At 60, he fears his prospects of getting a job are very slim, even though he has a degree in civil engineering and has vast experience in project management.
A similar story is recounted by John Jones, 52, a fellow resident of Lancaster County, Pennsylvania. Jones lost his teaching job last July as the Pennsylvania state government tried to close a funding shortfall.
Parks and Jones are among the nearly 7 million Americans receiving jobless benefits under seven different state and federal programs. Around a quarter of those will fall off the rolls in January if Congress does not renew an extended benefits program that expires at year end.
Parks' savings are almost exhausted and his house has lost more than 30 percent of its value, making it hard for him to seek job opportunities outside Pennsylvania.
He has tried to market his management skills in manufacturing and the fast-growing field of health care, but has found them already overcrowded.
"It's really getting tight," Parks told Reuters. "The ability to provide is really diminishing and it becomes more the ability to survive."
Parks is collecting $500 a week in unemployment benefits, a far cry from the $80,000 a year he made in his last job as a project manager in architecture and construction.
Although his wife still has her teaching job, they are stretching to cover their monthly expenses, which include a $480 monthly car payment.
Last month, they combined and refinanced their mortgage and home equity loan, lowering their payment to $1,600 a month from $2,175. Gone are the vacations and gym memberships.
"Savings are pretty much gone, we are now into our 401(K) (retirement) money. I haven't bought any clothing in a year and a half; my wife does buy stuff occasionally to be presentable at school," said Parks.
"We have taken no vacations. I just spoke to the gym about volunteering some of my time instead of having to pay for the gym membership."
Jones, who is married and has one child, used to make about $40,000 annually teaching . His wife has an hourly paid job. He declined to say how much he was collecting in unemployment benefits.
"Before I lost my job we could go out and buy extra things for the house. Right now we do not have that option. We have to watch everything that we're spending and buying," said Jones.
That includes foregoing dental check-ups.
"Our savings are about gone and the benefits will be running out fairly soon," Jones added.
BENEFITS RUNNING OUT
The Obama administration estimates that through the course of 2012, about 6 million people would lose federally funded unemployment benefits if Congress does not act.
Currently, federal money ensures that the unemployed receive benefits for up to 99 weeks in states where joblessness is high. Ending the program would mean the newly unemployed would have to rely on state programs that usually last for only 26 weeks.
Extended benefits have been renewed several times as the economy struggled to mount a vigorous recovery from the 2007-09 recession, the worst since the Great Depression.
According to Christine Owens, executive director of the National Employment Law Project, the average unemployed worker receiving extended benefits gets just $296 a week.
"That represents only 50 percent of the income needed to cover the most basic necessities of food, housing and transportation," she said.
The extended federal benefits have become a target in the fight over budget policy between Republicans and Democrats, and renewal is uncertain. Analysts warn that removing that cushion from the millions of unemployed would dampen the still-fragile economic recovery.
"If the unemployed do not have money to spend, then spending in the economy is going to decline. Providing unemployment benefits is one of the effective ways to create jobs," said Lawrence Mishel, head of the liberal Economic Policy Institute in Washington.
Analysts estimate that not extending benefits for the long-term unemployed could chip away as much 0.3 percentage point from GDP.
NO STIMULUS FROM JOBLESS BENEFITS?
Those opposed to extending the benefits, including the conservative Heritage Foundation, argue that they have failed to stimulate the economy and are instead encouraging recipients to continue seeking jobs that do not exist.
Half the jobs lost during the downturn were in manufacturing and construction. Most of them are not going to be recovered. That is bad news for Brian Krady, another Lancaster County resident, who lost his job in August after 20 years in manufacturing.
Krady, 47, is collecting $500 a week in jobless benefits that will extend for several more months.
The Heritage Foundation says raising benefits to 99 weeks has increased the unemployment rate by 0.5 percentage point.
"People are trying to find jobs similar to what they had previously, when those jobs completely don't exist, so they will spend a good portion of their period unemployed looking for jobs that they are unlikely to find," said James Sherk, a senior policy analyst at the Heritage Foundation.
"The only sound arguments for extended unemployment benefits are humanitarian."
DESPERATE TO WORK
Jones and Parks bristle at the suggestion they are contributing to the high unemployment rate by staying on benefits for a long time.
Both men have been actively looking for work with the help of the PA CareerLink of Lancaster County. The unemployment rate in the county is 6.1 percent, 2-1/2 percentage points below the rate for the nation as a whole.
Jones said he has applied for more than 100 jobs since being laid off, and some of them outside education.
"Most people don't respond. I have gone to visit places, trying to get a job and you can't even get past the front desk," he said. "You can't make a pitch, they just don't want to talk to you. Right now I am looking to work. I don't care what it is in."
Parks believes his age puts him at a disadvantage.
"I believe I run into some age discrimination when I get an opportunity to interview. Things go well into the interview, it sounds like it will progress to the next stage," he said.
"In one case they asked for a background check and they just disappeared. This has happened three times," said Parks. "You can't blame the employer, if they can find somebody younger and cheaper, and there is a glut of employees there, why should they choose to go with an experienced, expensive worker?"
The longer Parks and Jones remain unemployed, the dimmer their prospects of getting a job become as they lose skills and connections.
About 43 percent of the 13.3 million unemployed Americans have been out of work for 27 weeks and more.
"Most of the long-term unemployed are people who had pretty good jobs and these jobs were permanently eliminated," said Harry Holzer, professor of Public Policy at Georgetown University in Washington.
"If they exhaust their benefits ... what are their options?"
Already, the labor force participation rate -- the percentage of working-age Americans either with a job or looking for one -- is at 28-year lows.
While many experts advocate retraining, especially for those who lost their jobs in construction and some sections of manufacturing, Holzer warned that will not necessarily help older unemployed workers like Parks.
"For people who are in their 50s, it's hard to go back and retrain. A 55-year-old with a brand new degree is less attractive than a 25-year-old with the same degree," said Holzer.
Analysts say some of the long-term unemployed could end up settling for lesser-paying jobs, but even those are in short supply. For every one job opening, there are about 4.6 people.
"It means there are simply no jobs available for more than three out of four unemployed workers," said the Economic Policy Institute's Mishel.
"In a given month in today's labor market, the vast majority of the unemployed are not going to find a job no matter what they do." (Reporting by Lucia Mutikani; Editing by Dan Grebler)
By Lucia Mutikani
Source: Yahoo News
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - George Parks has been out of work for 21 months and his unemployment benefits will run out at the end of the month.
At 60, he fears his prospects of getting a job are very slim, even though he has a degree in civil engineering and has vast experience in project management.
A similar story is recounted by John Jones, 52, a fellow resident of Lancaster County, Pennsylvania. Jones lost his teaching job last July as the Pennsylvania state government tried to close a funding shortfall.
Parks and Jones are among the nearly 7 million Americans receiving jobless benefits under seven different state and federal programs. Around a quarter of those will fall off the rolls in January if Congress does not renew an extended benefits program that expires at year end.
Parks' savings are almost exhausted and his house has lost more than 30 percent of its value, making it hard for him to seek job opportunities outside Pennsylvania.
He has tried to market his management skills in manufacturing and the fast-growing field of health care, but has found them already overcrowded.
"It's really getting tight," Parks told Reuters. "The ability to provide is really diminishing and it becomes more the ability to survive."
Parks is collecting $500 a week in unemployment benefits, a far cry from the $80,000 a year he made in his last job as a project manager in architecture and construction.
Although his wife still has her teaching job, they are stretching to cover their monthly expenses, which include a $480 monthly car payment.
Last month, they combined and refinanced their mortgage and home equity loan, lowering their payment to $1,600 a month from $2,175. Gone are the vacations and gym memberships.
"Savings are pretty much gone, we are now into our 401(K) (retirement) money. I haven't bought any clothing in a year and a half; my wife does buy stuff occasionally to be presentable at school," said Parks.
"We have taken no vacations. I just spoke to the gym about volunteering some of my time instead of having to pay for the gym membership."
Jones, who is married and has one child, used to make about $40,000 annually teaching . His wife has an hourly paid job. He declined to say how much he was collecting in unemployment benefits.
"Before I lost my job we could go out and buy extra things for the house. Right now we do not have that option. We have to watch everything that we're spending and buying," said Jones.
That includes foregoing dental check-ups.
"Our savings are about gone and the benefits will be running out fairly soon," Jones added.
BENEFITS RUNNING OUT
The Obama administration estimates that through the course of 2012, about 6 million people would lose federally funded unemployment benefits if Congress does not act.
Currently, federal money ensures that the unemployed receive benefits for up to 99 weeks in states where joblessness is high. Ending the program would mean the newly unemployed would have to rely on state programs that usually last for only 26 weeks.
Extended benefits have been renewed several times as the economy struggled to mount a vigorous recovery from the 2007-09 recession, the worst since the Great Depression.
According to Christine Owens, executive director of the National Employment Law Project, the average unemployed worker receiving extended benefits gets just $296 a week.
"That represents only 50 percent of the income needed to cover the most basic necessities of food, housing and transportation," she said.
The extended federal benefits have become a target in the fight over budget policy between Republicans and Democrats, and renewal is uncertain. Analysts warn that removing that cushion from the millions of unemployed would dampen the still-fragile economic recovery.
"If the unemployed do not have money to spend, then spending in the economy is going to decline. Providing unemployment benefits is one of the effective ways to create jobs," said Lawrence Mishel, head of the liberal Economic Policy Institute in Washington.
Analysts estimate that not extending benefits for the long-term unemployed could chip away as much 0.3 percentage point from GDP.
NO STIMULUS FROM JOBLESS BENEFITS?
Those opposed to extending the benefits, including the conservative Heritage Foundation, argue that they have failed to stimulate the economy and are instead encouraging recipients to continue seeking jobs that do not exist.
Half the jobs lost during the downturn were in manufacturing and construction. Most of them are not going to be recovered. That is bad news for Brian Krady, another Lancaster County resident, who lost his job in August after 20 years in manufacturing.
Krady, 47, is collecting $500 a week in jobless benefits that will extend for several more months.
The Heritage Foundation says raising benefits to 99 weeks has increased the unemployment rate by 0.5 percentage point.
"People are trying to find jobs similar to what they had previously, when those jobs completely don't exist, so they will spend a good portion of their period unemployed looking for jobs that they are unlikely to find," said James Sherk, a senior policy analyst at the Heritage Foundation.
"The only sound arguments for extended unemployment benefits are humanitarian."
DESPERATE TO WORK
Jones and Parks bristle at the suggestion they are contributing to the high unemployment rate by staying on benefits for a long time.
Both men have been actively looking for work with the help of the PA CareerLink of Lancaster County. The unemployment rate in the county is 6.1 percent, 2-1/2 percentage points below the rate for the nation as a whole.
Jones said he has applied for more than 100 jobs since being laid off, and some of them outside education.
"Most people don't respond. I have gone to visit places, trying to get a job and you can't even get past the front desk," he said. "You can't make a pitch, they just don't want to talk to you. Right now I am looking to work. I don't care what it is in."
Parks believes his age puts him at a disadvantage.
"I believe I run into some age discrimination when I get an opportunity to interview. Things go well into the interview, it sounds like it will progress to the next stage," he said.
"In one case they asked for a background check and they just disappeared. This has happened three times," said Parks. "You can't blame the employer, if they can find somebody younger and cheaper, and there is a glut of employees there, why should they choose to go with an experienced, expensive worker?"
The longer Parks and Jones remain unemployed, the dimmer their prospects of getting a job become as they lose skills and connections.
About 43 percent of the 13.3 million unemployed Americans have been out of work for 27 weeks and more.
"Most of the long-term unemployed are people who had pretty good jobs and these jobs were permanently eliminated," said Harry Holzer, professor of Public Policy at Georgetown University in Washington.
"If they exhaust their benefits ... what are their options?"
Already, the labor force participation rate -- the percentage of working-age Americans either with a job or looking for one -- is at 28-year lows.
While many experts advocate retraining, especially for those who lost their jobs in construction and some sections of manufacturing, Holzer warned that will not necessarily help older unemployed workers like Parks.
"For people who are in their 50s, it's hard to go back and retrain. A 55-year-old with a brand new degree is less attractive than a 25-year-old with the same degree," said Holzer.
Analysts say some of the long-term unemployed could end up settling for lesser-paying jobs, but even those are in short supply. For every one job opening, there are about 4.6 people.
"It means there are simply no jobs available for more than three out of four unemployed workers," said the Economic Policy Institute's Mishel.
"In a given month in today's labor market, the vast majority of the unemployed are not going to find a job no matter what they do." (Reporting by Lucia Mutikani; Editing by Dan Grebler)
Libya leaders send U.N. new appeal to unfreeze funds
Dec 11, 2011
By Ali Shuaib
Source: Yahoo News Maktoob
TRIPOLI (Reuters) - Senior figures in Libya's new leadership have written a letter to the United Nations asking it to release funds still frozen three months after the country's civil war ended, the central bank chief said on Saturday.
When a rebellion broke out in February against the rule of Muammar Gaddafi, the U.N. Security Council froze Libyan assets estimated at $150 billion, but the bulk of that sum remains beyond the reach of the new Libyan rulers.
Frustration at the delay has been growing inside Libya, where the interim government says it urgently needs the cash to pay the wages of public sector workers and to start re-building state institutions.
The letter, sent on Thursday, was meant to offer reassurance to U.N. member states which had expressed doubts the new Libyan leadership was united and cohesive enough to be trusted with the cash, Central Bank Governor Saddeq Omar Elkaber told Reuters.
Elkaber said he had signed the letter along with Mustafa Abdel Jalil, chairman of the National Transitional Council (NTC), interim Prime Minister Abdurrahim El-Keib and Finance Minister Hassan Ziglam.
"We need this money to manage the country," the central bank governor said on the sidelines of a conference.
INSUFFICIENT FUNDS
The freezing of Libyan assets was part of a package of sanctions intended to put pressure on Gaddafi's administration to stop attacking civilian protesters.
Gaddafi's 42-year rule ended when his forces fled Tripoli in August, and the last of the fighting in Libya ended in October when the former leader was captured and killed. All major powers recognize the NTC as Libya's legitimate representative.
Yet by late November only about $18 billion of the $150 billion in seized assets had been released by special dispensations of the U.N. Security Council's sanctions committee. Diplomats said last month that of the $18 billion, only about $3 billion had been made available to Tripoli.
Diplomats said they were concerned that Gaddafi or his family could be the legal owner of the assets, not the Libyan state, and had expressed worries about the legitimacy of the unelected NTC.
Libya can generate substantial revenues from oil exports, but these were halted by the conflict and are taking time to restore, leaving a hole in the NTC's finances.
A senior Security Council diplomat said last month the council was working to speed up the flow of unfrozen assets to Libya.
By Ali Shuaib
Source: Yahoo News Maktoob
TRIPOLI (Reuters) - Senior figures in Libya's new leadership have written a letter to the United Nations asking it to release funds still frozen three months after the country's civil war ended, the central bank chief said on Saturday.
When a rebellion broke out in February against the rule of Muammar Gaddafi, the U.N. Security Council froze Libyan assets estimated at $150 billion, but the bulk of that sum remains beyond the reach of the new Libyan rulers.
Frustration at the delay has been growing inside Libya, where the interim government says it urgently needs the cash to pay the wages of public sector workers and to start re-building state institutions.
The letter, sent on Thursday, was meant to offer reassurance to U.N. member states which had expressed doubts the new Libyan leadership was united and cohesive enough to be trusted with the cash, Central Bank Governor Saddeq Omar Elkaber told Reuters.
Elkaber said he had signed the letter along with Mustafa Abdel Jalil, chairman of the National Transitional Council (NTC), interim Prime Minister Abdurrahim El-Keib and Finance Minister Hassan Ziglam.
"We need this money to manage the country," the central bank governor said on the sidelines of a conference.
INSUFFICIENT FUNDS
The freezing of Libyan assets was part of a package of sanctions intended to put pressure on Gaddafi's administration to stop attacking civilian protesters.
Gaddafi's 42-year rule ended when his forces fled Tripoli in August, and the last of the fighting in Libya ended in October when the former leader was captured and killed. All major powers recognize the NTC as Libya's legitimate representative.
Yet by late November only about $18 billion of the $150 billion in seized assets had been released by special dispensations of the U.N. Security Council's sanctions committee. Diplomats said last month that of the $18 billion, only about $3 billion had been made available to Tripoli.
Diplomats said they were concerned that Gaddafi or his family could be the legal owner of the assets, not the Libyan state, and had expressed worries about the legitimacy of the unelected NTC.
Libya can generate substantial revenues from oil exports, but these were halted by the conflict and are taking time to restore, leaving a hole in the NTC's finances.
A senior Security Council diplomat said last month the council was working to speed up the flow of unfrozen assets to Libya.
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