Euro Crisis Deepens

The IMF is calling on Greece to refinance their debt. The growing realization that despite the bailout of €110 billion (US $158.5 billion), holders of Greek sovereign bonds will have to take losses.

Indeed, the most recent analysis by the European Commission, the IMF and the ECB on the issue of whether Greece will be able to refinance its debts by itself came to an alarming conclusion. The study found that the country's economy is contracting more than previously feared and that one of the main causes behind the contraction was the harsh austerity measures that the government has been forced to introduce in return for receiving outside assistance. As a result, the public deficit in Greece has climbed even higher than previously assumed.

The article in Der Spiegel concludes, "Indeed, on the whole, those in charge of rescuing the euro in Brussels and Europe's capitals have done a poor job."

The European Central Bank (ECB) warns that restructuring would hit banks that hold a lot of Greek debt hard. And that includes the ECB who bought up several billions of Greek sovereign debt. Greece is paying between 5 and 6 percent for the loans. There are still worries about Spain and now Beligum needing bailouts. Belgium is in the top fifth of over-borrowed nations globally.

As with several Mediterranean countries, Belgium was a huge beneficiary of joining the euro (it was the first to do so) because the implicit German guarantee allowed heavy borrowing at much lower interest rates.

Source: Business Insider (July 2010) that notes that "Much to the dislike of most politicians across Europe, Brussels is the de facto Federal Capital." Some 40% of the population comes from outside Belgium as bureaucrats and lobbyists from all over Europe.

Belgium has been without a government for 302 days. NPR

Ivory Coast Civil War UPDATE

BBC's UN correspondent asks, "Did UN forces take sides in Ivory Coast?" as he reports on the U.N. helicopters bombing of Gbagbo's arsenal.

"What is clear is that if the UN continues to sanction military interventions in national conflicts, there will be continuing questions about whether it is acting to protect civilians, or using humanitarian justifications as a smokescreen to force political change."

Election Results Wisconsin

With 204 votes separating them,  on Wednesday, JoAnne Kloppenburg declared victory and issued a statement thanking Supreme Court judge Prosser for his service and vowing to be an impartial judge. Report from Wisconsin State Journal (April 8)
- Interestingly, the vote count reported in the story in Dane County, county seat of the state capitol at Madison, was:
133,513 or 73.3% of the vote For Kloppenburg
  38,627 or 26.6% of the vote for Prosser

In the 2010 Election for governor in Dane County, the vote was
148,380 or 67.96% for Barrett
  62,728 or 30.97 % for Walker
Source: Dane County Clerk's Office     link

That was before the Waukesha votes were corrected. They were not entered due to a database save error but the bipartisan commission caught this error during regular vote canvasing. The chairman of the WI DNC was there and corroborated the vote canvasing.

Press Conference video WI DNC vice chair speaks at 13:00 min
Ramona Kitzinge said, "We're satisfied that it's correct." and "I am with the Democrat party vice chairman of the Waukesha Democrats and I am not going to stand here and tell you something that's not true."

There will be a recount, probably several.

TODAY in the news April 8

Setting the ground rules. The legal team for Dr. Conrad Murray asked a judge to prohibit any mention of the physician's extramarital affairs, out-of-wedlock children or penchant for strip clubs at his manslaughter trial next month in the death of Michael Jackson. The lawyers plan to make Michael Jackson's financial woes central to their case, but do not want the fact known that Murray owed a host of creditors and was behind in child support for some of the six children he had fathered with four women that the prosecution wants to show how desperate Murray was to keep his job with Jackson. STORY Los Angeles Times (April 8)

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Remember that Gay Caveman Found story? Turns out he wasn't gay or a caveman. He was a "third gender" and a pre-Bronze Age farmer. He might even have been a shaman.
FOUND at LiveScience (April 8)
-- Or it might have been a media agenda thing.

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How's that Marxism going? Not too well in Venezuela where a blackout hit much of the country. Venezuela said it was due to a forest fire. Last year Venezuelans had blackouts for months when government said cutbacks were necessary during a drought.
Report    FROM Associated Press (April 8)

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Florida proposes budget cuts of $4 billion. AT at Orlando Sentinel (April 8)
-- In comparing the budget cuts, the newspaper puts the emphasis on health and school cuts, listing the very large savings of $700 million on public-employee pension below the scroll.
-- If Florida can cut $4 billion from their budget, why is the administration shutting down the Federal government over a dispute over cuts of only $12.5 billion?

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Texas House approves 85-mile speed limit. Not on all highways. "Texas and Utah are the only states that now allow speed limits of 80 miles per hour." STORY FROM Orlando Sentinel (April 7)

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The biggest drug dealing organizations. "A top U.S. State Department anti-narcotics official said Thursday that Colombia's leftist rebels and the Taliban are among the world's largest drug-trafficking organizations." ITEM Associated Press (April 7)
-- Someone should ask who is proving support to those organizations.

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UPDATED Mexican Violence Continues  Police found more than 40 bodies in eight pits found in a Mexican graves 80 miles from Brownsville. It is the same area where police found the bodies of 72 migrants shot to death August 24. Source: Houston Chronicle (April 6) The count is now up to 58 59.   Police found the bodies while looking for abducted bus passengers.   Brownsville Herald story (April 6)
Investigators have found an additional 13 bodies in two more mass graves. AP story (April 8)

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Planned Parenthood spent over $1 million electing Democrats in 2010. Story at Washington Examiner (April 8)
-- No wonder Democrats don't want it defunded.

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How are those wars going?

LIBYA by U.S., U.N. and France
A top US general told a Senate hearing that it was unlikely that Libya's rebel forces could launch an assault on Tripoli and oust the regime's leader Moamer Kadhafi. AFP (April 7) Ham said the operation was largely a stalemate now and was more likely to remain that way now that America has transferred control to NATO. AP (April 7)

In Libya, Rebel forces said NATO airstrikes hit them. AP (April 7)

First it was Nato airstrikes, now the story is "Gadhafi plane evades NATO no-fly zone, bombs rebel tanks" - three Russian tanks. McClatchy (April 7)
UPDATE April 8 McClatchy now says it was a NATO strike, but that they didn't know the tanks which were captured from Gadaffi were in rebel hands. (THIS, despite the fact that their original story said NATO had instructed rebels to paint captured tanks yellow on top. Despite that, there are stories about the rebels who were killed. And, from McClatchy, an unrepentant NATO who refuse to apologize, although AFP reports that NATO 'regrets" bombing. AFP: NATO chief Anders Fogh Rassmussen issued the apology after the operation's deputy commander, British Rear Admiral Russell Harding, refused to apologize. AFP also reports that the rebels themselves admitted its fighters had made a "mistake" by firing tracers in the air, prompting warplanes to act in self-defence. (You would not know that from the lurid stories in the Daily Mail or McClatchy.) (April 8)

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IVORY COAST by U.N. and France
"Many foreign journalists and senior diplomats from Japan, Israel and India on Wednesday sought US help to flee a besieged neighborhood in Ivory Coast's capital Abidjan, a US official said." AFP story (April 7) Ghabago holds on against former IMF economist's mercenaries. Civil War is virtually assured. France is now involved in six wars in Africa.

UPDATE April 8 - 100 bodies were found, "possibly burned alive" and the U.N. claims it is the work of Nigerian mercenaries and "at least partly ethnically motivated." (No information on who employed the Nigerian mercenaries, but the BBC identifies 244 dead as "traditional Gbagbo supporters.") MSNBC made no mention of the identity of the victims. AFP reported that reports of massacres "emerged as Ouattara's forces swept through the region on their way to confronting Gbagbo.

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DIPLOMATIC WAR by U.S. and Ecuador
US expels Ecuador ambassador in tit-for-tat move AFP (April 7) "Ambassador Luis Gallegos was summoned to the State Department which declared him persona non grata and asked him to leave the United States as soon as possible..." It was in retaliation for the explusion by Ecuador of US Ambassador Heather Hodges who was quoted in a cable leaked by WikiLeaks as saying President Rafael Correa knowingly appointed a corrupt chief of police. New York Times on her expulsion: "The expulsion of Ms. Hodges raised new doubts about American diplomacy in Latin America. Washington has had relatively warm ties with Mr. Correa, especially compared with its tense relationships with Bolivia and Venezuela, two leftist allies of Ecuador that have also expelled their American envoys." The United States is "also suspending suspending the bilateral dialogue, which had been scheduled for June.

In the News April 7

In the U.K. former environment minister Elliot Morley, a Labour MP, pleaded guilty to false accounting for £32,000 in expense claims. He served under Tony Blair as environment minister from 2003 to 2006. Story: The Telegraph (UK) Three others have been sentenced and one Tory MP is awaiting sentencing for expense-related crimes.
The Taxpayers Alliance is following this and many other stories. Link

Corruption in ICE

March 21 - Constantine Peter Kallas, 40, a senior lawyer at the U.S. Customs and Immigration Enforcement was sentenced to more than 17 years in prison for taking bribes to help immigrants fill out false paperwork to remain legally in this country. From initial arrest reports, "Some $950,000 more than Constantine Kallas earned at the Department of Homeland Security has been deposited into his bank account since 2000, according to a search warrant." ABA Journal