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Ceasefire arranged by president Sarkozy of France who holds the rotating Presidency of the EU when he visited Moscow and met Medvedev the Russian President. It lets Russia keep a bigger peacekeeping force in Georgia than before and preserves the internationally recognized borders and so the sovereignty of Georgia yet not the territorial integrity of Georgia, as it lets Russia continue to issue Russian passports to residents of Abhakazia and South Ossetia the two breakaway regions. The opposition in Georgia says it will question the Georgian President's decision to launch an attack in South Ossetia and ending up losing the 2 breakaway parts of Georgia and will ask him to resign after things settle down.

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Poland's president Kaczynski says after the Irish No vote to the Lisbon Treaty that he does not know which way this whole thing will end. President Sarkozy of france who has assumed the six month rotating presidency of the european Union says Kaczynski agreed to the Lisbon treaty in negotiations in Brussels last year. Poland like most other European nations approved the treaty through its legislature and Mr. Kaczynski's signature gives it ratification by Poland.

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Anne Applebaum describes comments of European diplomats she talked to who were strongly critical of British prime minister Cameron's efforts to win special protections for London's financial district, the City. They described this as petty, especially when the European negotiators were working to save the Euro currency. Sarkozy said recently that the British hate the euro, and have done little to help, and should shut up. And that is the sense today in European capitals even as Conservatives in Britain applaud Cameron's move. The result is to isolate Britain from the rest of Europe, even as Britain will be put in a position to having to play by rules set by the other 26 countries in the European Union, who are its main trading partner.

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Mishra turns a situation of neglect of security needs for Ambassador Stevens and the American diplomatic mission in Benghazi, Libya, by the Obama administration into full scale questioning of America's role in Asia and the Middle East. Stephens role in bringing freedom and democracy to Libya during the period when young people in Libya without weapons and training were fighting artillery and other attacks from Gaddafi's army is actually an example of the American people and media's efforts to support this effort. Throughout the Arab Spring American print and television media supported the efforts for democracy and freedom, as amply documented in Janvoo, even as the Obama administration vacillated in its decisions and the French under Sarkozy made a decisive and early contribution. Stephens gives America its finest hour and reflects its finest spirit.

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The top economic adviser to President Obama Lawrence Summers received more than $5 million from hedge fund D.E. Shaw. He was managing director of this hedge fund in 2006, before becoming economic adviser to the President and director of the National Economic Council. He also collected $2.7 million in speaking fees from Wall Street companies that received bailout money. At the recent G-20 summit the French President Sarkozy and the German chancellor Merkel had made regulatory reform and a global regulator a nonnegotiable point. Germany and France had insisted on strict regulation of hedge funds, something the Obama administration did not agree to. With the revelation of Summer's close ties to hedge funds, questions may be raised about the advice Obama is getting from Summers on the issue of hedge fund regulation.

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Valery Giscard d'Estaing known in France as V.G.E. died at the age of 94 from covid complications. He was president of France from 1974 to 1981 and ran for election after De Gaulle and De Gaulle's assistant Pompidou withdrew from politics. He presented himself as the modernizing face of Gaullism and supported most of De Gaulle's initiatives in improving Franco-German relations. He was finance minister and a Gaullist under both De Gaulle and Pompidou for 12 years. He lowered the voting age to 18 and advanced women's rights. One of his major contributions was the EMS or European Monetary System that set the stage for the Euro currency. He strengthened relations between France and Germany. After losing the 1981 election to Francois Mitterand on the left he continued to serve in the European Parliament and drafted a European Constitution that became part of the Treaty of Lisbon. To this day France is governed by a strong presidency after the lessons learned from the failure of political parties to agree and get things done both in the prewar period and the period 1946-1958. De Gaulle pushed through the reforms that made "the state" above the parochial and selfish interests of parties and politicians and embodied this in a directly elected president. From 1958 to 1981 France was governed with this principle in mind, and later presidents from Mr. Sarkozy to Mr. Macron also adopted this idea of "the state" with their movements but with lesser success than Mr. De Gaulle, Pompidou and V.G.E. who as Mr. Macron says "set the directions for France that still guide our steps." ...

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The CDU convention in Leipzig, Germany passed a compromise resolution that lays the ground for a EU country to voluntarily leave the euro zone and still maintain membership in the European Union. The resolution called for changes to the Lisbon Treaty to allow a euro zone member that is "unable or unwilling to permanently obey the rules connected to the common currency... to voluntarily... leave the euro zone without leaving the European Union." Merkel told delegates that Europe must change the EU treaty to allow for strong automatic sanctions for violations of the monetary union treaty. "We need to send a clear signal. We don't whine; we don't complain. We know instead that we have a job to do." On the issue of voluntary withdrawal from the eurozone, the earlier decision by Merkel and President Sarkozy of France- when prime minister Papandreou of Greece decided to put the issue of membership to a referendum- was to tell Greece that leaving the eurozone would mean leaving the European Union. This CDU resolution provides a basis for Greece to resolve its debt problems outside the euro currency, as experts suggest....

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Moderate far right, right and socialist have less meaning in the context of the French government of prime minister Michael Barnier. The NFP as the largest single party sees the turning down of it's moderate candidate Lucie Castets by Macron as not representative of the vote. Michael Barnier's choice as prime minister from the Les Republicains party with 47 members in the new National Assembly, the smallest of the top four parties NFP, Renaissance, RN and LR, means he will have to depend on Marie Le Pen's RN party to remain prime minister. Together the Les Republicains of Sarkozy and the Ensemble of Macron  have 213 members in the National Assembly representing the status quo, 168 for Ensemble Macron and 45 Les Republicians the Gaullist party. These two parties are the largest bloc combined compared to 182 seats for the socialist NFP Front Populaire and the Le Pen party with 143 seats. The strange twist is that Macron started out in the Socialist Party and was part of the Socialist administration of Francois Hollande, who formed his own party Renaissance (now Ensemble) to bring younger faces and replace the old political parties. This led to the decline of the Gaullist Les Republicains party. In 2024 Macron is back to the old parties- becoming part of an alliance with the old Les Republicains Gaullists. Yet the financial crises of 2009, the pandemic, and the inflation crises in France have changed France from what it was in the Gaullist De Gaulle period in the 60's to 90's, with a struggling lower and middle class who have shifted their support to Le Pen and to the Socialist Front Populaire. Barnier is left with the challenging job of combining new immigration policies (Le Pen) with socialist policies to help the middle and working class. A new consensus that says stopping migrants is part of helping working class (in Denmark and other EU countries) is how Barnier has to approach this situation to bring together different parties. ...

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France's president Sarkozy, said of British demands to protect its financial industry: "To accept a reform of the treaties by all 27 countries, David Cameron asked what we all considered unacceptable: a protocol in the treaty which would exonerate the U.K. on a certain number of regulations on financial services." British demands included one that would have made transfers of power from a national regulator to a E.U. regulator subject to a British veto, and a committment to keeping the European Banking Authority in London. To European leaders who are dealing with the fallout from years of weak regulation and bad loan decisions by banks, Britain's efforts to shield its banking industry was seen negatively. Efforts by Cameron to win exemptions for Britain's financial sector during a time of severe financial crisis is only leading to Britain becoming isolated from the 26 other countries in the European Union.

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France's Socialist party presidential candidate, Francois Hollande, says taxpayers earning more than 1 million euros will be placed in a 75% tax bracket if he is elected. He said the corporate executive pay in France now exceeds 2 millon euros. A 2009 French Senate study shows the richest 0.01% of French taxpayers earn an average of 1.22 million euros. There are 3,523 such households, and the extra tax revenue from the 75% tax will be small. The French Senate study showed these taxpayers paying an effective tax rate of 17.5%. President Sarkozy had imposed a 3% temporary increase in taxes for those earning more than 500,000 euros a year. Hollande also plans to tax those earning more than 150,000 euros a year at a marginal tax rate of 45% instead of the current 41%, and a the same time cut taxes for small and midsized companies.

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This report in The Economist magazine shows that Germany no longer runs the European Union in the way it has previously. During the austerity crisis with bank bailouts in many countries in southern Europe Germany played a key role. Merkel was perceived as the dominant partner in the relationships with French presidents Sarkozy and Hollande. Britain perceived Germany's increased dominance during that period as a threat. Brexit Leave campaign played on these fears and a diminished British role. Merkel's handling of the migration crisis also played into the hands of Brexit Leave campaigners with poster pictures of migrants crossing European borders in large numbers on British buses. Merkel changed course on migration policies and gradually reversed it to where Germany no longer welcomes economic migrants preferring that they stay in their home countries with German aid to these countries. Merkel's CDU is now facing challenges from a fragmented electorate with many parties and its own diminished role. Gradually the perception of Germany's role is now also reversing. Even though the new president of the European Commission is Ursula Leyen from Germany, there are more Spaniards, French, Italians and Belgians, work in the commission and parliament than Germans, More Director General roles are held by Italy. Germans in Brussels also do not take directions from Berlin, and are actually more Francophile and federalist in their thinking. Germans opinion is more diverse and plural than the idea of a dominant German view. Greens in Germany are coming first in polls showing how much is changing. These multilayers and different strands of thinking make Germany introverted as it is at present. Leyen is seen as more European in outlook and a more European Germany may be the result than a German Europe.  This may play a part in any new elections in Britain or a second referendum on Brexit as polls suggest there is a shift in opinion in Britain underway. ...

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The retirement age in France is much lower than other European countries. As people live longer and pension system finances are strained retirement ages are being increased. In France the retirement age is 60, and dates back to the Socialist president Francois Mitterand in the 1980's when the Socialists and the unions strongly supported a retirement age of 60 and a 35 hour work week. Socialist party former general secretary, Francois Hollande, calls changes "unjust reform." The Sarkozy government is treading softly by making a gradual change with the legal retirement age increasing by 4 months per year starting in July 2011, till it reaches 62 by 2018. The pension deficit is forecast at $40 billion a year for 2010. People in taxing jobs or in difficult occupations are exempted. By contrast Germany as plans to change the retirement age from 65 o 67. Britain and Italy have set this at 65.

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This France24 report looks at the question of whether the policies of four term German chancellor Angela Merkel emboldened Russia under president Putin to launch the invasion of Ukraine. FR24's interview with the vice president of the German Marshall Fund and head of its Berlin office, Thomas Kleine-Brockhoff, shows there are many reasons why Merkel's policies were serious errors that ignored caution from past experience and from other western leaders in the US and Eastern Europe. Kleine-Brockhoff says that "Europe did not go wrong, Germany and France did. France and Germany tend to speak for the rest of Europe. Bit these mis-assessments were made in Paris and Berlin, not elsewhere. Eastern Europe didn't go wrong. Northern Europe did'nt go wrong."  Kleine-Brockhoff says the war in Ukraine calls for an urgent re-assessment of the German and French policy towards Russia. "Not only is the post Cold-War order crumbling before our eyes, so are the strategies employed by Germany and France." Under particular scrutiny comes Merkel's policy, and policy supported by Steinmeier of the SPD, that took German dependence on Russian energy supplies from 36% during the annexation of Crimea to 55% in March 2022 with the invasion of Ukraine. Germany's conservative Die Welt has this to say- "What Germany and Europe have experienced over the last days is nothing short of the reversal of the Merkel policies of guaranteeing peace and freedom through treaties with despots," describing Merkel's policies as "an error." About France Kleine-Brockhoff says there were lofty ambitions under Sarkozy and Macron of European strategic autonomy, which did not correspond to reality, to fantasies of European armies when there was nothing but NATO. It is not dialogue with Putin and Russia that was a problem, says Laure Delcour, international relations expert at the Sorbonne Nouvelle in Paris. Some form of dialogue is necessary she says, but the dialogue has to have clear objectives. We must not confuse cause with consequence, she says. We know  that NATO enlargement had a big impact on Russia's perceptions, but the real problem is how Russia responded to enlargement. "In this case the problem is the consequence."  ...

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The lack of U.S. leadership and slow response by the Obama administration to the rapidly developing situation in the region risks spillover effects from Syria to affect the entire Middle East. Russia's stakes are minimal in the region because it is simply trying to retain some of its old influence in the region, yet it is having an outsized influence in the region through its early military assistance to the Assad regime. The stakes are much higher for the U.S. because of the decade spent and resources invested in Iraq, higher for Iraq with its need for civil harmony between Shiite and Sunni communities, for Turkey with its large Kurdish minority and flow of refugees from the border with Syria, for Saudi Arabia as a defender of Sunni interests. Without active U.S. leadership the situation is allowed to drift and young people of the Free Syrian Army are basically taking on the bulk of the role of resolving the situation. France's Sarkozy and Britain's Cameron offered this kind of leadership in Libya as Libya's young people struggled to resolve the situation there. ...

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Jackson Diehl, deputy editorial page editor of the Washington Post, says its hard not to conclude that Obama is really not engaged with the struggle for democracy and democratic process in the countries of the Middle East and the Arab World. His voice is only heard sporadically, and is missing altogether at crucial times, as the people of Egypt, Libya, and other countries express their democratic aspirations. This has been the case from the beginning of this struggle and continues today. He cites an Arab opinion poll, from Shibley Telhami of the University of Maryland with Zogby International, which shows a positive view of Obama at 34%, compared with 39% in 2009. When asked which countries have played a positive role, France and Turkey are given first place and the U.S. is close to China. This is because France's Sarkozy and Turkey have been actively engaged, and Obama has been silent for most of the time. Diehl says most Egyptians he talked to in Cairo in a recent visit, think that Obama's focus is on going along with the military and Israel. ...

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Spain's deficit as a percentage of GDP is expected to be 6.0 percent for 2011. The target set by the Rajoy government is for the deficit to be lowered to 4.4% in 2012. Newly elected prime minister, Mariano Rajoy, told parliament that the "outlook could not be darker," with the economy expected to contract in the fourth quarter and in 2012. Rajoy, plans to introduce emergency budget measures on Dec. 30, 2011, labor market changes in the first quarter of 2012, and a banking sector cleanup in the first half of 2012. Savings of 16.5 billion euros will be needed to meet the 4.4% of GDP deficit target for 2012. Rajoy is studying the situation before announcing budget cuts. He affirmed that pensions which were frozen in 2011, will be raised in 2012 in line with inflation. He enjoys the support of France's president Sarkozy and German chancellor Merkel, as all three leaders are heads of conservative parties in Europe, and has excellent rapport with them going back to the period when Rajoy led the opposition party in Spain....

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Public opinion in France is divided about France's dependence on nuclear power. Ifop's survey of Nov. 13, 2011, shows 40% of the French are now "hesitant" about nuclear power, about 33% favor nuclear power and 17% are against it. About two-thirds of the ruling UMP party of Nicholas Sarkozy supports nuclear power, while half of the Socialist party supporters say they are not sure about the path ahead. The issue is becoming important in the election, as the UMP claims the Socialist party's proposal to shut down 24 of the 58 reactors if elected will cost thousands of jobs and solar power cannot take its place overnight. The French are a bit puzzled by the nuclear issue in contrast to Germany where the issue arouses strong emotions, because nuclear energy had become accepted in France till the Fukushima nuclear disaster raised safety issues. EDF which operates the plants plans to increase spending on safety measures and on maintenance after audits by the French nuclear regulator. EDF's share price was down 40% since the nuclear accident at Fukushima, Japan....

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China's efforts to promote trade with India. Visit by Premier Wen to New Delhi. Deals made include a loan from China Development Bank to help Reliance ADA group purchase power-producing equipment from Shanghai Electric Group Company. The two companies signed a $10 billion agreement in October 2010 for Reliance to buy power equipment. India sells mostly commodities such as iron ore and imports Chinese power and telecom equipment and manufactured goods at this stage. Trade estimated at $60 billion is tilted in China's favor because of cheaper manufactured goods imported from China. Premier Wen calls for expanding trade emphasizing the advantages of combining China's strengths in engineering and infrastructure with India's strengths in information technology and pharmaceuticals. His point: the 21st century is the Asian century, and both India and China can make great achievements. India sees the advantages of using China's strengths and cost competitiveness in telecom, power and other areas as it seeks to boost its development of infrastructure. Wen's visit follows visits by the UK's Cameron, US's Obama, France's Sarkozy, all pursuing trade and investment with India....

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France's public finances and how this affects the strength of the euro-zone package of 750 billon euros to support eurozone countries facing financial crisis. France has a ratio of government debt to GDP of 80%, with BNP Paribas forecasting it to go up to 90%. France's budget deficit is forecast at 8% for 2010. And with high taxes it is risky for President Sakozy to raise taxes. The government's target is to cut the deficit to 3% by 2013. Part of the plan is to close tax loopholes, unwind stimulus spending, and to address the social security deficit. Weakened by poor midterm election results and facing strong unions, Sarkozy's options are limited.

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Mario Draghi faces his first test as head of the European Central Bank as Italian bond yields approach 8%. Draghi has limited purchases of bonds of troubled EU countries to 5-10 billion euros each week. This has been sufficient to keep Italian bond yields from going out of control, but high enough to keep pressure on governments in Italy, Spain, Portugal and Greece to make necessary changes. France, Germany and other countries in the EU are working on new rules for making strict budget discipline legally binding, with enforcement sanctions by a EU budgetary authority. Germany is pushing for the new rules. France's Sarkozy with a legacy of Gaullist reluctance to surrender sovereignty in such matters had resisted such calls in the past, but is moving in the direction of convergence of fiscal policies as the only way to preserve the euro currency and the EU idea alive. Draghi is taking a flexible stance on inflation and lowering rates compared to his predecessor, Trichet. He sees signs of slowing manufacturing activity and credit tightening in Europe as signs that inflation will come down from above 3% to something closer to the 3% target set by the ECB. Economists expect him to lower interest rates for the eurozone to 1% from 1.25%, when the ECB meets in a week. The manufacturing purchasing manager's index went down to 46.4 in November, below the breakeven point of 50, which signals a contraction. Output and orders were down across all of Europe, including Germany. Economists say Draghi has left open the possibility of larger bond purchases if the new rules are made legally binding on eurozone members....

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Spiegel Online's interview with Emmanuel Macron, on the TGV 8434 train from Bordeaux to Paris. He is joined by Mrs. Macron. Macron says he is aware that he does not have a bloc of core support like Ms. Le Pen, yet he says this means he will try that much harder for voters on the right and the left. He says their is no political renewal in the political class in France and that it remains closed. He says particular attention must be paid to rural France outside big cities like Bordeaux, Lyon, Marseille and Paris, where people have had a different encounter with globalization. On the European Union he sees the need to revitalize it by having a closer union focussed on countries that are interested in this. He sees the need for a joint finance minister and permanent head of Euro Group. This might be a smaller EU without countries such as Britain, and others who are not interested in a closer union. He does not agree with the idea that any member state of the EU can stop other member states from proceeding. Macron does not believe in moving to the right as in the Dutch election because he says people are "not idiots" and in France this has not worked for Nicholas Sarkozy, which has some truth to it as authenticity (and humility) matters to French voters. A personal approach worked for Fillon early on till the scandal over payments he received. Macron brings to this personal approach and relative youthfulness, his sense that he must appeal to all segments, rural and urban, educated and less educated, and at the same time be true to core values such as preserving the European Union, and authenticity in terms of views on Algeria. He also says he is aware he faces risks but that this is something he believes in deeply.   Macron has not hesitated to express his views on topics such as Algeria, calling it a crime against humanity, and later elaborating on what he meant. Macron says his movement En Marche is different in style and manner from the closed nature of French politics. He believes in transparency, term limits, and removing conflicts of interest in French politics, as a way to make a fresh start. The first round of voting is on April 23, 2017, followed by a second round of voting between two candidates.  ...

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At the 2 day summit in Brussels Sarkozy and Brown are pushing for tougher oversight of banks. Brown wants strict standards for capital reserves of the banks and having financial markets open their books.

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Wall Street Journal reporters Walker in Berlin, Forelle in Brussels, and Meichtry in Rome, reconstruct the events during critical days after the indecision and failure to reach agreement during the July summit of eurozone countries. This took the form of intervews with leading players and over 25 policy makers. What emerges are accounts of how Germany's Angela Merkel, daughter of a Lutheran pastor, and protege of Eurozone founder, former German chancellor Helmut Kohl, handled the crisis. Merkel was widely criticized in the media for indecision. What emerges is an account of a leader who took decisive action at key moments in the crisis- leading to the formation of new governments in Greece and Italy taking action to improve finances, and negotiations with banks represented by the International Finance Corporation leading to acceptance by banks of a 50% loss on loans to Greece to reduce Greece's unsustainable debt burden. Merkel also worked with the European Central Bank's departing president Frenchman Claude Trichet and new president Italian Mario Draghi to resist French president Sarkozy's efforts to have the ECB assume responsibility for the crisis through large scale buying of Italian and Spanish bonds; which was opposed by German public opinion as a backdoor way of having German taxpayers assume responsibility for European debt. Shown are three critical moments when Merkel intervened. In October 2011, after Italian prime minister Berlusconi reneged on promises to make pension and other reforms to improve Italian finances because of political resistance. He survived a parliamentary no-confidence vote by one vote. Merkel took the lead on October 20, by directly calling Italian President Georgio Napolitano on the phone, to urge him to take action for forming a new government in Italy. The result was Napolitano talking with all political parties to form a new government, leading to the formation of a government by a non-political figure respected in Italy, former EU commissioner Mario Monti. A day earlier, on October 19, French President Sarkozy met ECB president, Trichet, at an event honoring him as departing ECB president in Frankfurt's Alte Oper concert hall. Trichet, Merkel and Sarkozy met in a side room. Sarkozy asked for decisive help from the ECB for large scale buying of Italian and Spanish bonds to lower yields, which had reached 7% on Italian bonds. Trichet responded that the ECB's charter did not allow it to finance governments, with the meeting ending in a shouting match between the two leaders. On October 21, EU and IMF inspectors warned that Greece's debt was reaching unsustainable proportions and austerity measures alone would not work, unless the bondholders, the European banks, took losses of 60% on their excessive lending to Greece. At this point France agreed to the German position arguing for this level of bondholder haircuts or losses, fearing the prospect of large future bailouts that would jeopardize France's triple AAA credit rating. The July 2011 summit accord had only provided for 10% in losses for bondholders. On October 27, at a meeting that went past midnight, Merkel and Sarkozy called IIF head Charles Dallara, who headed negotiating for the banks, to EU headquarters in Brussels. Merkel handed Dallara an agreement containing the 50% bondholder loss demand, and told Dallara- "This is the last offer." Merkel was saying banks would be left with nothing if they rejected it and Greece defaulted. Dallara called bankers and the IIF accepted Merkel's agreement. The final moment that October came on October 31, when Greece's prime minister Papandreou said he would call a referendum on the bailout provisions and austerity measures demanded by the IMF, the EU and the ECB. Bond markets reacted negatively to the announcement fearing a rejection and a Greek default. The Group of 20 leaders was meeting in Cannes, France on Nov. 2, 2011. Papandreou was asked to come to Cannes for a pre-summit meeting. Here Merkel told Papandreou- "the real question" for the referendum was, "Do you want to be in the euro, or not?" Days later Papandreou, lacking support in Greece from political parties and opposition inside his party, submitted his resignation. A non-political figure respected in Greece, former ECB vice president, Lucas Papademos, was appointed prime minister to head a Unity government. Polls after the appointment showed three fourths of Greeks said that this was "a positive step for Greece," with Papandreou's party getting only 11% support and the opposition led by Samaras about 20%. The criticism leveled at Merkel is that Germany should take responsibility for debt throughout the euro area through the issuance of eurozone bonds or the ECB buying large amount of bonds of Spain and Italy. Merkel faced strong opposition inside Germany and from the Bundesbank to this idea. The other criticism was based on austerity measures worsening the finances of Greece because of a lack of growth in the economy, which is true; yet Germany may see the situation in Greece as taking a long time to be resolved in any event because of excessive and faulty financial management. For Italy and Spain putting finances in order was a necessity, and austerity measures should lead to short term sacrifice but improve prospects for the long term by returning the economies to growth. Another criticism is the installation of governments that lack popular or electoral support. As the polls in Greece showed the Unity government there has far greater support and public opinion blames the politicians for the huge mess. In Italy, Berlusconi was widely seen as losing popular support when he resigned. And in Spain Mariano Rajoy, the newly elected prime minister, was elected with a huge majority in parliament following winning in local government elections. Merkel also held her own party, the Chrisitian Democrats together at the recent Leipzig convention. Mario Draghi, was elected with German support to head the European Central Bank. He has long argued for better management of Italian finances as head of Italy's central bank. Draghi was able to support Merkel with carefully planned and managed actions. First to reduce interest rates to support economic growth in a slowing eurozone. Following this with the ECB's Long Term Financing Operation in late December 2011, to provide unlimited loans to European banks at 1% interest for three years in exchange for a broadened list of collateral deposited at the ECB. In a final twist in this drama, Charles Dallara, who was a key negotiator for the U.S. Treasury in setting up the Brady Bonds- that converted bad Latin American government debt owed to U.S. banks in the 1980's into long term debt with large reductions in principal owed and lower interest rates. This was in exchange for guaranteed repayment with 30 year U.S. zero coupon bonds. Dallara was now a negotiator for the banks to reduce the chance of the very same bondholder haircuts that he had negotiated in an earlier period to solve the Latin American debt crisis. Other players in the drama were Axel Weber, head of the Bundesbank, Germany's central bank, who resigned after strong and outspoken opposition to the ECB's large scale purchase of bonds of Greece, Italy and Spain. Jens Weidmann, his protege, who replaced him. And Jurgen Stark, German representative at the ECB, who also resigned in opposition to Germany assuming responsibility for eurozone debt. ...

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A call to U.S. and European leaders to uphold civilized values after the repeated use of chemical weapons and poison gases in Syria by Bashir Assad. Roberts quotes the poet Wilfrid Owen who fought on the Western Front in World War I and witnessed the horror of gas attacks at the time. The poem is "Dulce et Decorum Est." It describes a chlorine gas attack at that time. The Geneva Protocol for the Prohibition of the Use in War of Aphyxiating, Poisonous and other Gases, banned their use in 1925. The hesitant response of president Obama to the use of chemical weapons in Syria by Assad compares very unfavorably with the Sarkozy-Cameron action in Libya and president Clinton's response in Kosovo after attacks on civilian populations. It also fails to uphold civilization values. This is true also of the government of Hollande in France, Merkel in Germany, which have failed to respond. The focus on domestic issues and the eurozone crisis does not make any less the responsibility of western leaders on this issue. Russia under Putin and China under Jinping have not grasped the importance of standing up for civilization and values to be credible in world affairs....

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Former German chancellor Angela Merkel and foreign minister Steinmeier are singled out for their policies that likely emboldened Russia into its invasion of Ukraine. The DW.com says Merkel's tenure now shows deep seated flaws in leadership with her policies with Russia having gone too far in the other direction and leaving Europe in a vulnerable position. Merkel saw herself as continuing old policies from the period of SPD chancellor Willy Brandt of engaging with Russia, then called the Soviet Union. Yet looking at it closely the policy of Brandt was to reach accomodation with the eastern half of Germany, called the GDR, not to weaken Germany's position. By distancing herself from the US Merkel was in sense out on her own. Consider says DW.com that in 2014 Germany imported 36% of its gas from Moscow, by 2022 when Russia invaded Ukraine it was 55%. The SPD under Gerhard Schroeder and Steinmeier following Schroeder share responsibility with Merkel for this dependence.    A similar integration of the German economy with China's economy happened under the 4 term administration of Angela Merkel. This can be seen in the port of Hamburg. This may have similarly emboldened China in its relations with neighbors in the Indo-Pacific region and with Taiwan. German chancellor Scholz is by one report reading Cambridge historian Brendan Simms- "Europe The Struggle for Supremacy 1453 to the Present." This historical account of the relations of major European states in the 5 centuries before the present period shows the Balance of Power as critical to the liberty and freedom that Britain and Netherlands as well as other countries were able to keep. Sweden was attacked in 1700 with sign of weakness, Britain faced challenges from France in 1700 and in 1800, and allied with the Hapsburgs and German states to maintain its democracy and way of life. Merkel of CSU and Steinmeier of SPD may have failed to realize this when they ignored the history of Europe. The WSJ report on the miscalculations on the German and French side with Sarkozy, Hollande and Macron show that all these leaders failed to grasp that by leaving the issue unsettled of Ukraine's NATO admission they had created the situation that was bad for both Russia and for Ukraine, creating seeds for serious differences that could lead to future conflict and war. By not respecting and giving room to the lessons of history these leaders in Western Europe have created the conditions for the very opposite of what they intended to do.  ...