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Greece Attempts to Form Caretaker
Government, Avoid 'Panic'
The London Telegraph
Greece's political leaders are to meet to form a caretaker government to steer the country to a second election in just over a month, with its euro membership at stake and its president speaking of "fear that could develop into panic." President Karolos Papoulias was forced to call a new vote after failing to cobble together a coalition government. An election on May 6 saw Leftist opponents of Greece's EU-IMF bailout deprive the parties that ran the country for generations of a majority. Polls suggest the Radical Left Coalition, or Syriza, is poised to win the re-run. That prospect has shaken faith in Greece's ability to remain in the single currency and stay solvent, sending the euro and European shares lower, and raising the bond yields that reflect the risk that other European countries will be hurt.
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North Korea Upgrading Missile Launch Site
The London Telegraph
North Korea has started work to upgrade its Musudan-ri missile launch site and potentially make the facility capable of firing an intercontinental ballistic missile. Undeterred by the catastrophic failure of what Pyongyang claims was a rocket putting a satellite into orbit in April from its facility at Tongchang-ri, North Korea is now investing in a larger launch pad at its alternative launch site, diplomatic sources said. Officially known as the Tonghae Satellite Launching Ground, Musudan-ri is in the far north-east of the Korean Peninsula and was originally used in the 1990s to test-fire Scud missiles that it built based on Soviet designs. The site underwent a major upgrade in the 1990s and the site was used to launch numerous weapons, including the intermediate-range Taepodong-1 missile.
Chinese Official to Aussies: It’s Us or America
Sydney Morning Herald
Australia cannot juggle its relationships with the United States and China indefinitely and must choose a ''godfather'' to protect it, according to a prominent Chinese defense strategist. The warning by Song Xiaojun, a former senior officer of the People's Liberation Army, comes after Foreign Minister Bob Carr was told by his Chinese counterpart that Australia's close military alliance with the US was a throwback to the Cold War era. Senator Carr yesterday met the man expected to become China's next premier, Li Keqiang, in Beijing. Discussions centered on more comfortable matters including furthering trade and investment and the 40th anniversary of diplomatic relations between the two nations. But Australia's strategic position in the Asia-Pacific region remains contentious.
Forty-Nine Headless Corpses
Found in Northern Mexico
Thomson-Reuters
Suspected drug gang killers dumped 49 headless bodies on a highway near Mexico's northern city of Monterrey in one of the country's worst atrocities in recent years. The mutilated corpses of 43 men and 6 women, whose hands and feet had also been cut off, were found in a pile on a highway in the municipality of Cadereyta Jimenez Sunday, officials from the state of Nuevo Leon said. "What's complicating the identification of all the people was that they were all headless," said Jorge Domene, the Nuevo Leon government's spokesman for public security, who said the other body parts were missing. Domene said the brutal Zetas drug gang claimed responsibility for the murders in a message found at the scene. The massacre was the latest in a string of mass slayings that have convulsed Mexico in recent months.
Thousands Take to the Streets
of Moscow to Protest Putin
AP/ABC News
Prominent Russian novelists and poets led a street protest by more than 10,000 people in Moscow on Sunday without obtaining the required permit, and police did not intervene. The demonstrators skirted the law by remaining silent and carrying no posters, even though the demonstration had clearly been organized as an anti-President Vladimir Putin rally. The gathering was the latest of several impromptu protests that have taken place in Moscow since Putin's inauguration Monday, held by people unhappy that he is the country's formal leader once again. Police had detained hundreds of people who tried to get near Putin's cortege during the inauguration, some of whom were merely wearing white ribbons — a symbol of the Russian protest. Since then, activists have staged "flash mobs" across Moscow.
In Egypt Turmoil, Thieves Hunt Pharaonic Treasures
AP/ABC News
Taking advantage of Egypt's political upheaval, thieves have gone on a treasure hunt with a spree of illegal digging, preying on the country's ancient pharaonic heritage. Illegal digs near ancient temples and in isolated desert sites have swelled a staggering 100-fold over the past 16 months since a popular uprising toppled Hosni Mubarak's 29-year regime and security fell apart in many areas as police simply stopped doing their jobs. The pillaging comes on top of a wave of break-ins last year at archaeological storehouses -- and even at Cairo's famed Egyptian Museum, the country's biggest repository of pharaonic artifacts. Horrified archaeologists and antiquities authorities are scrambling to prevent smuggling, keeping a watch on European and American auction houses in case stolen artifacts show up there.
JPMorgan's $2 Billion Blunder
Raises Transparency Questions
FOX Business
One of the things rattling Wall Street about JPMorgan Chase’s surprise $2 billion trading loss is the lack of transparency the bank is providing about the nature of the trades that led to this embarrassing blunder. While it makes sense on some levels, JPMorgan’s reluctance to give specifics is helping to drive down its shares and that of other big banks as investors and pundits speculate about whether they could suffer similar trading stumbles. At the same time, questions are swirling about whether JPMorgan should have been more forthcoming about the existence of the losses and massive positions, especially given CEO Jamie Dimon’s public dismissal April 13 about concerns that emerged in the media just days earlier. Late Thursday JPMorgan said it has lost more than $2 billion on positions in its synthetic derivatives portfolio.
Third Greek Coalition Bid Fails
BBC News
The leader of Greece's socialist party, Evangelos Venizelos, has abandoned efforts to form a new government. There has been no breakthrough in Mr. Venizelos's talks with other parties. Greece is deeply divided over budget cuts demanded in return for a bailout by the EU and the IMF. The country's debt crisis has raised the possibility it could default and be forced out of the eurozone. Following talks with other party leaders Friday, Mr. Venizelos said: "I am going to inform the president of the republic tomorrow and I hope that, during the meeting with Carolos Papoulias, each party will assume its responsibilities." The president is expected to try to pressure parties into a government of national salvation but he is unlikely to succeed. The country would then be facing the prospect of fresh elections.
Federal Reserve Approves
China's First US Bank Takeover
AFP/Yahoo! News
The United States on Wednesday opened its banking market to ICBC, China's biggest bank, for the first time clearing a takeover of a US bank by a Chinese state-controlled company. Just days after high-level US-China economic talks in Beijing, the Federal Reserve approved an application from Industrial & Commercial Bank of China to buy a majority stake in the US subsidiary of Bank of East Asia. The transaction will make ICBC the first Chinese state-controlled bank to acquire retail bank branches in the United States. ICBC has been the most aggressive of China's "big four" banks in expanding overseas. According to the Fed the bank has total assets of roughly $2.5 trillion. It will buy up to 80 percent of the US unit of the Hong Kong-based Bank of East Asia, which operates 13 branches in New York and California.
Egypt Secures Financial Aid from Saudi Arabia
AP/Yahoo! News
Saudi Arabia on Thursday signed a series of deals with Cairo aimed at helping stabilizing Egypt's struggling economy days after the worst diplomatic tiff between the two was healed. A statement Thursday from the Saudi ambassador to Egypt said the kingdom has agreed to provide $500 million in aid to Egypt and will deposit an additional $1 billion at the country's central bank. Egypt's Minister of International Cooperation, Fayza Aboul-Naga, said the deposit is for eight years and is part of Riyadh's previous commitment to Egypt. Ambassador Ahmad Abdul-Aziz Kattan also said Saudi will meet Cairo's request to export $250 million worth of butane gas to Egypt, which has faced ongoing shortages of the cooking fuel. Saudi Arabia and Egypt have just patched up one of the worst rifts in years of strategic relations.
Multinational Force Massed
on Jordanian-Syrian Border
DEBKAfile
Beset on two fronts, Bashar Assad rushed his elite Presidential Guard Division to Damascus Thursday, as two massive car bombs in the al Qaza district of Damascus demolished the command center of the Syrian military security service’s reconnaissance division, killing 55 people and injuring more than 300. Over to the southeast, 12,000 special operations troops from 17 nations, including the US and other NATO members, Saudi Arabia and Qatar, were poised on the Jordanian side of the Syrian border for an exercise code named “Eager Lion.” Military sources also disclose that the bomb attack on Damascus was the most serious his regime had suffered against a military target since the 14-month Syrian uprising began. For the first time, Assad moved his most loyal unit, the Republican Guard Brigade, into central Damascus.
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