Greece, Fitch downgrades credit rating from 'B +' to 'CCC'

Fitch cut its long-term rating of Greece to 'CCC', four steps less than the previous 'B +'. The decision is mainly due to the absence of a credible plan of aid for the country. The downgrading of Athens, Fitch said in a statement, reflecting the lack of a new program of support to Greece by the European Union and the International Monetary Fund should be credible and fully funded.

At this, the rating agency points out, there is increasing uncertainty about the role of the private sector in any future financing of Greece, just as you are weakening the country's macroeconomic prospects.

• Fitch downgrades Greece on lack of funding program (13/07/2011)
• Fitch further downgrades Greek default ratings (13/07/2011)
• Fitch: News Corp. rating not hurt by share buyback - BusinessWeek (13/07/2011)
• Greece's Sovereign Rating Lowered to CCC by Fitch (13/07/2011)
• Fitch downgrades Greece to one step above default (13/07/2011)

Fitch Group (wikipedia)  

The European Parliament launches register of lobbyists. But the registration is voluntary

The European Parliament approves the new common register for lobbyists in Brussels. Starting next June, all members of lobby groups who have a relationship with Parliament and the European Commission will be recorded in a single list and published on-line. The aim is to ensure greater transparency in relations between EU institutions and businesses, interest groups and NGOs.

Too bad the commercial registration remains voluntary, at least for the lobbyists of the European Commission. Two registers already exist (for the Parliament since 1996 and for the Commission since 2008) and saw more than 1,700 organizations accredited as interest groups in Parliament and well 3900 to the Commission.

Libya, the rebels, "Gaddafi escaped, captured the airport Measured"

The colonel from Libya, Muammar Gaddafi, was abandoned by several days the capital, Tripoli, to take refuge in a desert area of the country. According to reports from the site of the movement in February '17 ', linked to the rebels in Libya, Gaddafi would be hidden in the desert area of Ash Shurayf, about 400 km south of the capital.

The insurgents do not exclude that from that place might then decide, if necessary, to escape more easily to the neighboring Chad. On the Facebook page "Intifada, 17 February" appears instead reports that Gaddafi would have gone off in an unknown place, as the rebels say the Libyans on their page.

Brussels, Heidi Hautala, "With bin Laden dead increases the risk of attacks"

After the death of Osama bin Laden on one thing, in Brussels, I agree in many: the risk of terrorist attacks has increased. The sigh of relief, pulled by the Presidents of Commission, Council and Parliament is not shared by those who would prefer to see bin Laden tried by the International Criminal Court The Hague (International Criminal Court - ICC).

"I liked the statements with which the European Union representatives have welcomed the killing of bin Laden," said Heidi Hautala, Chairman of the Subcommittee on Human Rights to the European Parliament. "The EU should know that bin Laden is more useful to extremists dead than alive." The risk, according to Hautala, is that the former head of Al Qaeda to become a martyr in the name of that other terrorists could arrange attacks in the West.

La Russa, "reluctant to bomb Libya" Initiate the evacuation plan of Misurata

Against the Gaddafi regime will be applied further restrictive measures on oil and gas. The ministers decided the European Union, met today in Lussembrugo. A meeting was held after the controversy of the morning. "NATO has decided to take the direction of military operations and we have accepted," said French Foreign Minister, Alain Juppe, "Today must play its role and destroy heavy weapons used by Gaddafi to bomb the population" .

Immigrants, Bossi shouts "foer the ball. And in Europe, the League that the protection for refugees

While in Italy, the League would like to see the refugees landed in Lampedusa "foer the ball" in Europe calls for the implementation of exceptional measures to accommodate. In Strasbourg it was voted by a large majority a report of initiative (and therefore worthless legislation) made by the League's Fiorello Provera claiming the application of Directive 55 of 2001, which provides exceptional temporary protection to refugees.

Libya, they are discussing whether to arm the ribelliMigranti, EU against Italy: "Already 80 million data"

While the forces of Muammar Gaddafi recapture the strategic oil terminal of Ras Lanuf, halfway between Tripoli and Benghazi, and the rebels took refuge in Brega, turns on the debate within the coalition on the assumption of supplying arms to insurgents, and exacerbates the conflict between Italy and the European Union on emergency immigrants.

Britain and France are pushing for arming the rebels. British Prime Minister David Cameron said that "if a decision has not yet been taken", the United Kingdom "does not exclude" the solution. Barack Obama even prevent it. Rome appears skeptical that the Ministry considers arming insurgents "and not 'at all said to be the ideal solution" and calls to "use the tools already available." Has expressed strong opposition from Russia as well as from Belgium, Denmark and Norway, which are also part of the multinational coalition.

Libyan crisis, the EU increasingly split. The European External Action Service will not work

Catherine Ashton, president of the European Action Service The Libyan crisis splits Europe. The European Union, in fact, can not find a common position. Too many voices and too many bureaucratic ties that bind all decisions unanimously. Without that every action is impossible. Yet, in 2009, something had been designed with the creation of a European External Action Service (EEAS), immediately hailed as one of the most important innovations of the Lisbon Treaty, which entered into force in 2009.

Nuclear power, Greenpeace: "Hazardous also 14 European reactors"

TEPCO's technical center in No. 3 of Fukushima "Some nuclear power plants will not pass safety tests," he said Guenther Oettinger, EU Commissioner for Energy, on the eve of yesterday's extraordinary meeting in Brussels called to discuss nuclear safety in Europe . Words that have startled the political world and industry, despite the assurances top post of Commissioner himself "optimistic about the possibility that all EU countries participate in the stress test on power in the second half of 2011." "Perhaps the Commissioner any information that we have," said Stephan Kurth, nuclear scientist Öko-Institut in Germany.

Tragedy and operetta

Have thought that Sarkozy, what must have thought the European leaders meeting in Paris when he arrived Silvio Berlusconi? They were shaking hands with the premier of a great country whose presence is crucial in the coalition seeking to oust Qaddafi? Or in their minds the image of the polished gentleman with a smile fake remains difficult to separate from the room, ridiculous expression that follows him for months and follows us around the world: bunga bunga? It is not a question to mock those who have already did everything to become a laughingstock.

Sarkozy: "Ready to put Attolico UN demands"

"We are ready to implement the UN demands to end the violence in Libya." With these words the French president Nicolas Sarkozy concluded a summit in Paris to decide on roles and rules of armed intervention in Libya after the approval of the UN resolution. The foregone conclusion of the summit is the go-ahead for military operations against troops loyal to Gaddafi.

"We are ready to use every means, including military ones to put an end to violence against the civilian population in Libya," said the tenant of the Elysée, which emphasized the role of French aviation operations: "Our aircraft will prevent all Libyan attacks. Both planes, and tanks against Gaddafi.

Libya to stop the massacre

Predictably, the big worry interventionist in Libya is likely to result in a stalemate. There are those who accuse the cowardice of the West, but there is probably something below. And that is the unwillingness to support the rebels, despite the peculiar characteristics of the situation in Libya, were placed on the same wavelength of Tunisian and Egyptian revolutionaries.

It is no coincidence that, in this very hour, Hamas in Gaza is repressing the Palestinian students applying for national unity among the various factions, while in Bahrain, Saudi troops firing on demonstrators in the total silence of the Arab world and the international community. We are the epilogue of the Arab revolution? Hard to say ...

Ras Lanuf, Gaddafi bombard Paris from the sea recognizes the insurgents

In Libya, Gaddafi forces loyal to the sea from the air and pound rebel positions around the oil city of Ras Lanuf el'offensiva ventures further to the east, while in the Tripoli regime claims to have regained Zawiya. France meanwhile, first, has now officially recognized the National Transitional Council (CNT), the interim government rebel Benghazi.

On the outskirts of Ras Lanuf ANSA noted an invitation in person air strikes, which hit, among other things, a rebel checkpoint. A witness quoted by Reuters said that a house in Ras Lanuf civilian was hit and the AFP that a bomb fell on a residential district that many residents have fled in recent days, and where a hospital was evacuated immediately.

The other side of the revolt

The riots in African countries bordering the mare nostrum marked the beginning of 2011. A month was enough to young Tunisian and Egyptian to get rid of dictators who ruled undisturbed for decades (since 1981 Mubarak, Ben Ali since 1987). And the wave did not stop, but had spread to Libya - the friend with the Gaddafi regime that is determined to sell life dearly - in Bahrain, Yemen, Algeria.

Beduinieuropei

Do not do this. Do not make revolutions to oust the dictators in advance senz'avvertire Minister Frattini Dry. Already have an alertness to the sloth, by comparison, is a splinter. Even the touches to go for the world to take the fish's face on behalf of B, which is always dodges the last minute. Yes, in every international crisis, the Caribbean and tap away on atolls huts to avoid taking a position, not having any (in the U.S.

The shortsightedness of imbeciles

When the government of corrupt and prostituted and launched the infamous Nazi-fascist decree "safety" and insulted before the Bossi-Fini law, we have not tried too much to expect that two bombs had exploded in his hand that would be deadly to those who had produced . When, as a cherry on the cake, Berlusconi decided to do the bedside of a deal with Gaddafi at the expense of human rights of the poor masses who were dismissed by military vessels or abandoned to certain death in the Libyan desert, we expect that we could not stop the bursting of a dam with the finger of ignorance humanitarian and political myopia.

Ruby, B. wants to go to the Court of Strasbourg

A few days after the Foreign Minister Franco Frattini on the possibility that Berlusconi will ask the Court of Human Rights to see their privacy protected, in its view threatened the Ruby case and investigations of the Milan prosecutor, the files of the Strasbourg Court has not yet nothing. Or rather, there is an open file, but Knight is the "defendant".

That case, filed in March 2010 from the Foundation Open Society Institution for the monopoly that Berlusconi has in Italian television. The foundation of the liberal billionaire George Soros was in fact to the High Court "as a result of the control that he (Silvio Berlusconi, ed) carry out the law on Italian television system, contrary to European democratic standards, a situation that is unacceptable for a democracy" .

You really become so?

The foreign newspapers these days carry a number of articles on the trial of Berlusconi. I shall focus on two that, for various reasons, I found incredible: the first for the hardness unusual for the newspaper, the second to the unconscious masochism with which to defend the indefensible, we see ridiculous abroad.

The first is an editorial by the European Voice of February 3, titled Erosion of Italy's European tradition is a crying shame. The editorial was inspired by the commemoration of Tommaso Padoa Schioppa, presented as representative of the best Italian tradition Europe, to put your finger on the huge and grotesque gap with the current political leadership (I would add: and not just politics).

Revolt in Tunisia and Egypt, the weak EU position: "Too many interests at stake"

While Tunisia by the revolutionary wave has hit Egypt, the European Union can not get beyond tepid statements. Too many, moreover, the interests at stake in the Mediterranean because Brussels may raise their voices against what threatens to become a real massacre. Even before the riots in Egypt, Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Network (Emhtn) denounced in no uncertain terms the "closeness" of some EU states with the Tunisian regime.