In the second round of the Socialist primary elections wich took place yesterday the voters selected François Hollande. Read the rest of this entry »

With national elections looming in just over half a year, France held indirect elections last Sunday to choose the senators. The results were not very good for Sarkozy’s party: the left wrested the Senate from the right. Read the rest of this entry »

It was not necessary to be an economist to know that this financial debacle was about to happen. In both sides of the Atlantic politicians have left the banks rule and have been too timorous to face them. In the process, we have had the housing bubble -the US and Spain are two good examples of it-, unemployment at levels that are intolerable and an always growing difference between the haves and the have-nots. Read the rest of this entry »

After the unimaginable massacre of last week in Norway, Europe’s far-right wing parties have condemned it and are trying hard to separate themselves from the actions of the confessed gunman Anders Breivik. And yet, some of the central tenets the killer had, such as anti-emigration and nationalism, have been part of the beliefs of those same far-right parties. Read the rest of this entry »

Yesterday we wrote about the US federal debt and the possibility of a potentially disastrous default were the problem go on unresolved. Today it is the turn of the EU and its financially troubled nations which are on the brink of economic collapse. Read the rest of this entry »

The situation in Spain is getting tense with more and more protests in most of the large cities. What began on May 15 in Madrid as a movement of the “indignados”(those who feel indignation) against the country high unemployment and their loathing of the politicians, both the ones in power and those in the opposition, has been growing and not only in the capital but in many other cities. Read the rest of this entry »

As we reported on May 26 “the Palestinian unity agreement came as a prelude to the Palestinian plans to seek full recognition of statehood from the United Nations something both the US and Israel are against.” Now trying to avoid a large dispute at the UN in September, EU foreign affairs chief Catherine Ashton has launched a bold idea. Read the rest of this entry »