China backs Spain to emerge from crisis: Beijing

China backs Spain to emerge from crisis: Beijing
China is confident Spain will recover from its economic crisis and Beijing will buy Spanish public Debt despite market fears of an Irish-style Bailout, a top Chinese official said Monday. The comments by Vice Premier Li Keqiang were made in an op-ed piece in Spain's leading daily El Pais one day ahead of his arrival in Madrid for a three-day official visit, the start of a European tour that will also include Britain and Germany. "Since China is a responsible investor country in the long-term o...

China backs Spain to emerge from crisis: Beijing
China is confident Spain will recover from its economic crisis and Beijing will buy Spanish public Debt despite market fears of an Irish-style Bailout, a top Chinese official said Monday. The comments by Vice Premier Li Keqiang were made in an op-ed piece in Spain's leading daily El Pais one day ahead of his arrival in Madrid for a three-day official visit, the start of a European tour that will also include Britain and Germany. "Since China is a responsible investor country in the long-term on ...

Contrary To The IMF's Lies, The IEA Finds That Surging Oil Price Actually Will Be A "Threat To The Recovery"
, we now get an FT article with the following title: "Oil price ‘threat to recovery’" based on a quote from the IEA." H.M.M.M.M. we wonder whose opinion is more accurate: an organization run by idiots (who subsequently matriculate into modestly coherent people whose only job is to bash their former employer), whose only purpose is to destroy economies under mountains of Debt (or is that the World Bank?) and to bail out insolvent PIIGS... or the International Energy Agency? We'll have...

European stocks rise, FTSE starts with a 'bang'
Fireworks over the London Eye on New Year's Day. On the London Stock Exchan... A man reads the newspaper at Madrid's Stock Exchange last May. Spain's Ibex... Europe's leading Stock Markets leapt on Tuesday in a robust start to the new year following a mixed 2010 amid the Eurozone's lingering Debt crisis. London's FTSE 100 soared 2.33 percent to 6,037.53 points early on its first trading day of 2011, after sharp gains for the Frankfurt and Paris Stock Markets on Monday. "The FTSE 100 started th...

Freezing weather leads to south China evacuations
BEIJING -- Freezing temperatures have forced the Evacuation of more than 20,000 people from their homes in southern China, as the region braces for more temperature drops in the coming days. Ice and sleet have collapsed the roofs of more than 200 homes and forced the Evacuation of 22,800 people across the southern province of Guizhou, the official Xinhua News Agency reported late Tuesday. Thousands of cars were stranded and some ice-covered roads were closed, the report said. "People, especiall...

Freezing weather leads to south China evacuations
BEIJING - Freezing temperatures have forced the Evacuation of more than 20,000 people from their homes in southern China, as the region braces for more temperature drops in the coming days. Ice and sleet have collapsed the roofs of more than 200 homes and forced the Evacuation of 22,800 people across the southern province of Guizhou, the official Xinhua News Agency reported late Tuesday. Thousands of cars were stranded and some ice-covered roads were closed, the report said. "People, espec...

China's 2010 GDP growth likely 10 percent
BEIJING, Jan. 4 (UPI) -- China expects to register a double digit annual Economic Growth rate in 2010, the country's Central Bank Governor said. Zhou Xiaochuan, in a Speech carried on the Web site of the People's Bank of China, said the country's economy had returned to normal and that the 2010 Economic Growth was estimated to reach about 10 percent, the state-run Xinhua news agency reported. Zhou said the government would promote a market-oriented reform of the Interest Rate regime in a gradual...

Freezing weather leads to south China evacuations
Source: AP Beijing — Freezing temperatures have forced the Evacuation of more than 20,000 people from their homes in southern China, as the region braces for more temperature drops in the coming days. Ice and sleet have collapsed the roofs of more than 200 homes and forced the Evacuation of 22,800 people across the southern province of Guizhou, the official Xinhua News Agency reported late Tuesday. Thousands of cars were stranded and some ice-covered roads were closed, the report said. "People, ...

China's police wear colorful clothes to help image
Police in China appear to be trying to improve their often harsh public image. One city is trying to do it with more fashionable red raincoats for their female traffic officers. State media on Wednesday said the new raincoats made their debut Sunday in the heart of the huge southwestern city of Chongqing. The makeover is one of the more colorful efforts police are making to reach out to a public long angry over Corruption and abuse of power. It will take far more than surface changes, if cases i...

China lends a hand as Spain climbs from economic doldrums
Chinese Vice Premier Li Keqiang arrived in Spain today for a visit that could add an economic boost as the country sees Unemployment fall and appears on target to reduce its Deficit....

Greece to build fence to stop migrants
ATHENS, Greece, Jan. 4 (UPI) -- Greece aims to build an 8-mile border fence and boost its Coast Guard to stem illegal Immigration via neighboring Turkey. Greece's Public Order Minister Christos Papoutsis, who announced the plan Monday, said it was necessary after more than 100,000 people entered Greece illegally in 2010. "This is the hard reality and we have an obligation to the Greek citizens to deal with it," Papoutsis said in a statement. "Greek society has exceeded its limit in its capacity ...

Transfusion for Transylvania: it's in Charles's blood
Prince Charles ... "overwhelmed" by the countryside. Photo: Reuters Warsaw: Prince Charles has been praised for breathing new life into a Transylvanian village by attracting tourists to the area. The prince declared himself ''overwhelmed'' by the countryside, which was once ruled by his relations, when he bought two properties in the heart of Transylvania in 2006. He had been visiting the ancient village of Viscri in the foothills of the Carpathians regularly since 1998, attracted by its renowne...

Spain enacts tough anti-smoking law
MADRID - Tapas bars — the noisy and bustling Spanish success story that combined delicious morsels with good wine and often a cloud of Cigarette smoke — are now smoke-free. So are restaurants, discos, casinos, airports and even some outdoor spaces. Spain on Sunday introduced an anti-smoking law that is likely to turn the EU's fourth largest tobacco producer from a cigarette-friendly land abounding with smoky bars and restaurants, into one of Europe's most stringently smokeless....

Spanish court open probe into killings in Iraq
Madrid — A Spanish judge has opened a Probe into a melee in which Iraqi security forces are accused of killing 11 members of an Iranian exile group in a camp in Iraq in 2009, according to a court order obtained Tuesday by The Associated Press. Judge Fernando Andreu, saying he is investigating possible Crimes Against Humanity, called on Iraqi Lt. Gen. Abdol Hossein al Shemmari to appear March 8 before the National Court in Madrid to answer questions about the incident. The writ said Shemma...

Spanish court open probe into killings in Iraq
Source: WP/AP Madrid -- A Spanish judge has opened a Probe into a melee in which Iraqi security forces are accused of killing 11 members of an Iranian exile group in a camp in Iraq in 2009, according to a court order obtained Tuesday by The Associated Press. Judge Fernando Andreu, saying he is investigating possible Crimes Against Humanity, called on Iraqi Lt. Gen. Abdol Hossein al Shemmari to appear March 8 before the National Court in Madrid to answer questions about the incident. The writ sai...

Spain makes forced prostitution arrests
MADRID, Jan. 4 (UPI) -- Spanish authorities say they arrested eight suspects who allegedly forced Romanian women into Prostitution after luring them to Spain with promises of jobs. The Spanish civil guard said the criminal network brought the women to the Alicante region where their documents were confiscated and they were compelled to work as Prostitutes, HotNews.ro reported Tuesday. Spanish investigators said five Romanians, two Albanians and a Moroccan were arrested. The two Albanians ran the...

China's police use blogs to boost image...
A Chinese police canine unit show off their dogs in Beijing in November. Po... Police in China have launched micro-blogs in a bid to counter an image as heavy-handed and to "guide Public Opinion" through improved communications with tech-savvy citizens, state media said Tuesday. At least 500 police bureaus throughout the country have set up accounts and are sending out messages on Twitter-like micro-blogging services that have become wildly popular in China, People's Daily reported on its websi...

7 missing after China fishing boat sinks
BEIJING - Chinese state media reports seven crew members are missing and feared drowned after their fishing boat sank in a southern China river. The official Xinhua News Agency says another four people were rescued after the boat sank on Sunday. Rescue boats and divers have been sent to search the area along the Xijiang River in the southern province of Guangdong. The report says the cause of the sinking is under investigation. It says there was no evidence of a collision....

China set to bailout Spain with a massive purchase of sovereign debt
China goes on its Bailout tour and expresses confidence in Spain's ability to recover from its economic crisis. Beijing will buy Spanish public Debt despite market fears of an Irish-style bailout. They may get their hands burned, but if not, they will profit handsomely by buying Debt on fire sale as other investors panic. China has also bought some of Portugal's debt, but steered clear of Ireland and Greece. The comments by Vice Premier Li Keqiang were made in an op-ed piece in Spain's leading...

China provinces spurn Beijing, target sizzling growth
By Zhou Xin and Simon Rabinovitch Beijing | Tue Jan 4, 2011 3:24am EST Beijing (Reuters) - Chinese provinces, from northeastern Heilongjiang to southwestern Yunnan, have set ambitious growth targets for this year and into the future, challenging the central government's goal of reshaping The Economy along more sustainable lines. Growth-obsessed local officials regularly chafe under -- and often flout -- Beijing's reform directives, but the latest flare-up of tension comes at a particularly se...

Markets Vanish In a Flash
The historian Niall Ferguson (The Cash Nexus, War of the World) has written a paper on the risk imbedded in sovereign bond spreads between 1848 and 1914: "Political Risk and the International Bond Market Between the 1848 Revolution and the Outbreak of the First World War." Published in the Economic History Review earlier this year, his exhaustive study of weekly great-power bond prices (United Kingdom, France, Germany, Austria-Hungary and Russia) comes to a surprising conclusion -...

As National Debt Obama Ran Up Tops $14 TRILLION (with a T), Obamas Architect of Economic Disaster Whines About Debt Limit
Well, look, it pains me that we would even be talking about this. This is not a game. You know, the Debt ceiling is not something to toy with. If we hit the Debt ceiling, that’s essentially defaulting on our obligations, which is totally unprecedented in American history. The impact on The Economy would be catastrophic. That would be a worse financial economic crisis than anything we saw in 2008. No doubt defaulting on U.S. obligations would be bad, but Goolsbee’s missing the point. ...

Bond crisis on the way?
With strong Christmas sales and the Stock Market surging to a two-year high, talk is spreading that the long-awaited recovery is at hand. But gleaning the news from Europe and Asia as U.S. cities, states and the Federal Government sink into Debt, it is difficult to believe a worldwide Financial Crisis that hammers governments, banks and bondholders alike can be long averted. Consider. Fitch and Moody's have just downgraded the debt of Ireland, Greece, Portugal and Hungary. In Budapest, the poli...

Fed: Economy still weak despite improvements
By Pedro da Costa and Mark Felsenthal WASHINGTON | Tue Jan 4, 2011 2:04pm EST WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Federal Reserve officials in December felt the U.S. Economic Recovery was still weak enough to warrant monetary support despite growing signs of strength, Fed meeting minutes released on Tuesday showed. Wall Street Economists have been busy revising up their forecasts for Economic Growth in recent weeks on the back of signs showing business activity and consumer spending picking up steam. But ...

Fed: Economy still weak despite improvements
By Pedro da Costa and Mark Felsenthal WASHINGTON | Tue Jan 4, 2011 2:04pm EST WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Federal Reserve officials in December felt the U.S. Economic Recovery was still weak enough to warrant monetary support despite growing signs of strength, Fed meeting minutes released on Tuesday showed. Wall Street Economists have been busy revising up their forecasts for Economic Growth in recent weeks on the back of signs showing business activity and consumer spending picking up steam. But ...