BBC News - Sicily in danger of default, says Italian PM

Italian PM Mario Monti says the region of Sicily is close to defaulting on its debts, and he is seeking confirmation that the governor will resign.

In a statement, Mr Monti said there were "grave concerns" that the island would default following a growing financial crisis.

He said he had written to Raffaele Lombardo asking him to confirm his stated intention to quit this month.

Mr Monti's government is struggling to cope with a huge national debt crisis.

Any idiot can face a crisis - it's day to day living that wears you out.

Frank Schleck out of Tour de France after failing doping test | Reuters

Luxembourg rider Frank Schleck is out of the Tour de France after failing a doping test, a spokesman for his RadioShack-Nissan team said on Tuesday.

Earlier the International Cycling Union (UCI) announced the rider had returned an "adverse analytical finding" for the diuretic Xipamide although he was not suspended from the race.

However, asked if he would continue riding in this year's Tour, a RadioShack spokesman told Reuters: "No".

Any idiot can face a crisis - it's day to day living that wears you out.

BBC News - Spain royal family follows public sector wage cut

Spain's King Juan Carlos and his family are to take a pay cut following a recent bitterly contested cut to public sector wages, the royal palace says.

The king will lose 20,900 euros (£16,400; $25,660) from his salary of just over 292,000 euros for the year - a cut of 7.1%.

In total, the 8.3m euro royal budget will be cut by 100,000 euros in 2012.

Any idiot can face a crisis - it's day to day living that wears you out.

German court ruling: circumscribing the law | Editorial | Comment is free | The Guardian

The ruling was nearly two weeks ago, but the reaction to it has grown exponentially ever since. The judgment of the regional court in Cologne that a doctor performing circumcision had committed bodily injury to a child has reached national and international proportions. The case involved a Muslim boy, and affects many more Muslims in Germany than it does Jews. But Jews and Muslims are at one in condemning the judgment as a fundamental attack on their freedom of belief. Germany's leading Jewish body, the Central Council of Jews in Germany, said that circumcision was elementary for every Jew and that if the Cologne judgment were to become the legal norm, Jewish life in Germany might no longer be possible.

Any idiot can face a crisis - it's day to day living that wears you out.

Romanian PM systematically abusing constitution, says EU | World news | guardian.co.uk

European authorities have waded into a brutal political feud transfixing Romania, accusing the prime minister, Victor Ponta, of systematic abuse of the country's constitution and undermining the rule of law in his campaign to unseat the country's president.

A 22-page report from the European commission highlighting Romania's failures to observe EU legal standards, obtained by the Guardian before being released on Wednesday, says the Ponta government has ignored the constitution, threatened judges, illegally removed officials from key posts, and tampered with the democratic system of checks and balances in order to try to secure the impeachment of President Traian Basescu.

Earlier this month, Ponta used his parliamentary majority to unseat Basescu, rushing through new referendum rules on impeachment and ignoring the country's supreme court verdict that the moves were unconstitutional.

Any idiot can face a crisis - it's day to day living that wears you out.

French government to reinstate overtime tax | World news | guardian.co.uk

France's Socialist government is to bury the "work-more-to-earn more" philosophy of former president Nicolas Sarkozy by reinstating taxes on overtime.

The measure is also intended to strengthen the French left's totemic 35-hour maximum working week and wipe at least €3bn off the country's public deficit.

Abolishing the controversial overtime working law was a major pledge in François Hollande's successful presidential campaign. However, companies with less than 20 staff will be able to keep the tax break on extra working hours, as part of Hollande's promise to boost small firms

Any idiot can face a crisis - it's day to day living that wears you out.

Olympics security: MoD prepares to call up 2,000 more troops for G4S shortfall | UK news | guardian.co.uk

The Ministry of Defence is urgently making preparations to call up as many as 2,000 more troops for Olympic security operation if G4S fails to deliver on its revised target of 7,000 staff in place by next week's opening ceremony, Whitehall sources say.

A fresh urgency was injected into the contingency preparations after defence officials started working with G4S in the last few days and gained a better understanding of the problems facing the company. Whitehall sources told the Guardian the contingency involved the possibility of calling up between 500 and 2000 more troops.

The home secretary Theresa May, who only last Wednesday authorised the call-up of 3,500 extra troops to bail out the private security company, has not made any further official request for troops and is working to avoid exactly that situation.

Any idiot can face a crisis - it's day to day living that wears you out.

BBC News - Mau Mau case: UK government accepts abuse took place

The British government accepts that colonial forces in Kenya tortured and abused detainees during the Mau Mau rebellion, the High Court has heard.

Three elderly Kenyans who are suing the government for damages were told it did not dispute that "terrible things" had happened to them.

Their lawyers say it is the first ever official acknowledgement by the UK.

The revolt against British rule in Kenya in the 1950s and 1960s was marked by atrocities, with thousands killed.

Any idiot can face a crisis - it's day to day living that wears you out.

eFX: Small Greek Island Of Ikaria Plans To Join Austria (17 July 2012)

The roots behind such a bizarre decision dated back to 1912 in the midst of the Turkish-Italian War. The islanders made advantage of that historical moment and declared their independence from the Ottoman Empire. In the same year, they signed a 100 year agreement to join Greece which is set to expire this week.

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"To remain independent is difficult for us; we want to connect to another state. Of course, we won't ask Turkey; we prefer to join Austria," said an Ikaria resident according to the report.

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"If they can't assure us now new roads and a new hospital, we may decide to break away from Athens," the report quoted another Ikaria resident as saying.

What's in it for Austria? An Aegean resort?

If you are not convinced, try it on someone who has not been entirely debauched by economics. — Piero Sraffa

Eurointelligence Daily Briefing: Monti warns about default of Sicily

Italian PM issues statement warning about the fragility of the autonomous regions, which has over €5.3bn in debt with an unemployment rate of 19.5%; Fitch contradicts Mario Monti and says there is no immediate threat of default

Who you gonna trust on the solvency of Sicily? Fitch or Monti? According to international banking regulations, Fitch.

governor says region needs more time for reforms and a new growth plan; the Bank of Italy forecasts two years of recession for Italy; says euro crisis not going to end soon, and Italy was now on the edge; 11.1% of Italians are officially classified as poor; one of Monti's more symbolic savings measures is the cut of almost 2000 chauffeured cars; Francois Hollande may have to change the Constitution for the fiscal pact

No problem, he has it even easier than ZP last August: he has an absolute manjority in the Assemblée.

Jorg Asmussen says it was too early to determine whether Spanish banks need to be closed down

Of course, first the half trillion of bank debt in the hands of foreign creditors needs to be taken over by the Spanish state. Then the banks can be closed down

El Pais says the VAT rise is likely to lead to further falls in consumption; an ECB economist is to become the new president of the DIW research institute; the head of Munich Re is in favour of splitting up banks

Insurance companies lecturing banks about solvency? What is the world coming to!?

the Greek government struggles to save €11.5bn without wage cuts; Evangelos Venizelos tells party critics that they should quit

Is there going to be anyone left in PASOK?

FT Alphaville has all the details you ever wanted to know about that Finnish collateral; the Irish government announces a small stimulus programme; Hans-Olaf Henkel predicts that Angelka Merkel's next policy U-turn will be on the euro

Let me guess, she'll advocate quitting it.

a sleep expert, meanwhile, says sleep deprivation is to blame for the policy decisions by the European Council.

When you have a hammer all you see is nails, but on the other hand...

If you are not convinced, try it on someone who has not been entirely debauched by economics. — Piero Sraffa

Paul Mason blog: Deficit reduction, Greek style (BBC Newsnight, 20 July 2010)

This, of course, will be hard to sustain if the scale of austerity now tanks real economic growth. And hard to repeat here: with very little effort (and a metaphorical big stick) the Greek finance ministry has forced all those doctors and dentists whose annual incomes were supposed to be 30k Euros to get real and pay up. The New Economics Foundation estimates there's a maximum of £50bn to be raised here from a total crackdown on tax evasion, but it would need more than just applying the existing law to the small fry.

The most eyecatching part of the Greek figures out today is the 52% fall in government consumption. This is staggering and has been achieved by an immediate reduction in two spending lines the Coalition government in Britain is unwilling to touch in the short term: health and social security.

One final point is, the May 10th bailout is also having a benign impact: instead of increasing by 5%, Greek borrowing costs actually fell by 13%. It's early days but this is the first case study of rapid deficit reduction: we've already seen the consequences in terms of social unrest; but the pain has only started.

If you are not convinced, try it on someone who has not been entirely debauched by economics. — Piero Sraffa

ElPais.com in English: Government cuts to dependency law "most barbaric of all measures yet"

The last great bastion of the former Socialist government's social welfare program has become the latest target for the government's all-out assault on public spending. The Dependency Law, which was enshrined by José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero as an inalienable right for all Spaniards and would have brought the country closer to the levels of social protection offered in some other European nations, is to suffer a 15-percent cut in funding.

This comes on top of the loss of an equal amount to non-professional caregivers - family members, and in the large part women - in the recent state budget and the rescindment of government Social Security system contributions for carers announced earlier this month, which effectively leaves more than 178,000 people without the right to a state pension.

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Further muddying the water is the new grading system for illnesses and disabilities. Those people classified as Grade 3 - the least serious cases - who are not already in the system must wait until 2015 to qualify for dependent status. Under the new regulation, local authorities will have two years to process applications instead of the current six months. They will also not be obliged, as before, to make retroactive payments for time spent on the waiting list.

If you are not convinced, try it on someone who has not been entirely debauched by economics. — Piero Sraffa