EU leaders support growth, give few concrete plans

By RAF CASERT and SARAH DiLORENZO

European Union leaders concluded their latest summit with few concrete steps to fix the continent’s festering financial crisis even as the potential for a messy Greek exit from the euro appears to be rising. Some leaders stressed the importance of planning for just such an event but offered no concessions for Greece’s stringent bailout terms.

The perception that European leaders lack the political will to tackle the continent’s financial and economic problems has left markets on edge for weeks. Recession is spreading and government borrowing costs are on the rise across much of Europe, making it harder for heavily indebted countries to finance their deficits. The biggest fear is that if Greece cannot be saved, other larger economies — like Spain or Portugal — might face the same fate.

READ THE FULL STORY HERE.

Filed under: Story links

Around world, Obama’s presidency a disappointment

Candidate Barack Obama speaking in Berlin in 2008

By DON MELVIN  and ROD McGUIRK

– In Europe, where more than 200,000 people thronged a Berlin rally in 2008 to hear Barack Obama speak, there’s disappointment that he hasn’t kept his promise to close the military prison at Guantanamo Bay, and perceptions that he’s shunting blame for the financial crisis across the Atlantic.

In Mogadishu, a former teacher wishes he had sent more economic assistance and fewer armed drones to fix Somalia’s problems. And many in the Middle East wonder what became of Obama’s vow, in a landmark 2009 speech at the University of Cairo, to forge a closer relationship with the Muslim world.

In a world weary of war and economic crises, and concerned about global climate change, the consensus is that Obama has not lived up to the lofty expectations that surrounded his 2008 election and Nobel Peace Prize a year later. Many in Asia, Africa, the Middle East and Latin America were also taken aback by his support for gay marriage, a taboo subject among religious conservatives.

But the Democrat still enjoys broad international support. In large part, it’s because of unfavorable memories of his Republican predecessor, George W. Bush, and many people would still prefer Obama over his presumptive Republican challenger Mitt Romney.

READ FULL STORY HERE.

Filed under: Story links

After voters reject austerity, Europe ponders future of grand project

 

By DON MELVIN

BRUSSELS (AP) _ The European Union, a hope for peace that rose from the fires of World War II, paused Wednesday to honor its past and ponder its future _ and how it can ensure it still has one in light of the anti-austerity anger expressed this week by voters in France and Greece.

May 9 is Europe Day, a commemoration of a key events that led to the creation of the modern EU. It was on this day in 1950 that French Foreign Minister Robert Schuman issued a declaration calling for an integrated Europe.

Tens of millions of Europeans had perished in twin cataclysms of World Wars I and II. At root, Schuman’s dream was simple: He wanted an economic union, a sharing of strategic resources in Europe that would “make war not only unthinkable but materially impossible.”

By that measure the project has been a resounding success. The EU has grown to 27 members and the economic union has grown ever deeper, including a common market and, for 17 countries, a shared currency. The interlocking interests have helped to shield the bloc from any possibility of war.

But on Sunday voters in France and Greece voted in droves against the strategy of harsh budget cuts leaders contend is necessary to preserve the economic union that is at the heart of the European Union.

The question then arises: Is the European dream in danger? Could it all come unstuck?

“The current situation is extremely fragile and extremely dangerous,” said Zsolt Darvas, a research fellow at Bruegel, a Brussels-based economic think tank.

READ THE FULL STORY HERE.

Filed under: Story links

Angry EU voters, citizens rebel against austerity

Czechs in Prague protest against austerity measures

By DON MELVIN

BRUSSELS — For more than a year, European Union officials have called for austerity, austerity and more austerity as a means to solve Europe’s debt crisis. Now people who don’t want to pay the price are taking their fight from the streets to the ballot box.

Governments have fallen, more are at risk and in some places, a stark streak of nationalism is on the rise that could swing Europe ever deeper into a fortress mentality.

At stake is the future of the continent, where countries rich and poor are struggling with mountains of debt and moribund economies — a toxic combination that often seems to require contradictory remedies of belt-tightening and economic stimulus.

Increasingly, the long focus on austerity is convincing Europeans that the German-led mantra of fiscal responsibility is creating a vicious circle of more misery leading to lower growth — leading to even greater debt distress.

READ THE FULL STORY HERE.

Filed under: Story links

NATO: Member nations should share military systems

Lithuanian air traffic controller Vidas Baltrusaitis at Siauliai Air Base during a NATO air policing exercise.

By DON MELVIN

SIAULIAI AIR BASE, Lithuania (AP) — Two F-4 Phantom jet fighters under NATO control streaked off the runway at a former Soviet air base in Lithuania this week in response to a report that an aircraft had lost communications as it neared Finnish airspace.

It was all an exercise — a simulation — but one with a point beyond mere rehearsal: NATO officials hope that, at a summit in Chicago this May, member nations will put aside concerns over sovereignty and agree in principle to create joint defense capabilities.

The idea is that, in a time of dwindling defense budgets, it makes sense to have coordinated programs in which specific countries agree to buy certain weapons systems — and forgo others — to create a coherent whole.

The economic arguments are strong. Twenty of NATO’s 28 member countries cut their defense budgets between 2008 and 2011. And greater military integration in Europe would be of a piece with the greater economic integration that is emerging as a response to the continent’s financial crisis.

But defense is a closely guarded national prerogative, and the outcome is far from certain. A NATO official said earlier this week that no specifics would emerge from the summit in Chicago.

Instead, he said, NATO officials hope for a “public declaration of how far we’re prepared to go as an alliance.” He spoke on condition of anonymity because of NATO rules.

READ FULL STORY HERE.

Filed under: Story links

EU imposes sanctions on Assad’s wife, relatives

Asma Assad

By DON MELVIN and JOHN HEILPRIN

BRUSSELS — EU foreign ministers imposed sanctions Friday on Asma Assad, the stylish, British-born wife of the Syrian president, banning her from traveling to European Union countries and freezing any assets she may have there.

The foreign ministers also imposed the same sanctions on President Bashar Assad’s mother, sister and sister-in-law, and eight government ministers, in a continuing attempt to stop the bloody crackdown on opposition in the country.

In addition, the assets of two Syrian companies have been frozen, an EU official said. Bashar Assad himself has been the subject of EU sanctions since May.

Also Friday, the United Nations’ top human rights body sharply condemned the crackdown and the U.N. announced that the joint U.N.-Arab League envoy, Kofi Annan, would travel to Russia and China for more talks aimed at resolving the crisis peacefully.

The U.N. estimates that more than 8,000 people have been killed since an uprising began in Syria a year ago.

READ THE FULL STORY HERE.

Filed under: Story links

Belgium holds service for victims of bus crash

LOMMEL, Belgium (AP) — King Albert II and thousands of mourners on Wednesday remembered the 28 victims of last week’s bus crash in a Swiss tunnel during a memorial service centering on the 22 schoolchildren whose promise of youth was shattered by sudden death.

Under a sparkling sky, soldiers took part in a solemn procession that carried 15 coffins into a 5,000-capacity hall. The brown casket contained the remains of a teacher, the 14 white ones held the bodies of children who were on the cusp of their teenage years.

The students and the teacher were from one of two schools in northern Belgium that shared a bus for a traditional “snow class” vacation in Switzerland. They were returning from that exuberant holiday on March 13 when tragedy struck. Their bus, carrying 52 people, slammed into a tunnel wall. In addition to the dead, 24 children were injured.

READ THE FULL STORY HERE.

Filed under: Story links

Iran cut off from global financial system

By DON MELVIN and JON FAHEY

BRUSSELS (AP) — Dozens of Iranian banks were blocked from doing business with much of the world as the West tightens the financial screws on a country it wants to prevent from developing nuclear weapons.

The Belgium-based company that facilitates most international bank transfers on Thursday took the unprecedented step of blocking 30 Iranian banks from using its service. The move is likely to hurt Iran’s all-important oil industry and make it difficult for citizens to receive money from relatives living abroad.

The move by the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication, or SWIFT, is part of a broader effort by Western nations to isolate Iran financially and force it to demonstrate that it is not trying to develop nuclear weapons. Iran says that its nuclear program is for peaceful purposes only, but officials in many other countries believe otherwise.

READ THE FULL STORY HERE.

Filed under: Story links

Switzerland Bus Crash: Students’ Blog Chronicles Joy Before Deadly Accident

By RAF CASERT

HEVERLEE, Belgium — A torch-light march. Ravioli and meatball dinners. Rides in a funicular railway. A sing-a-long and a dress-up casino evening.

Those were some of the things that made last week “mega-cool” for 24 sixth graders at the St. Lambertus school in a hotel in Saint-Luc, high in the Swiss Alps.

The good times turned tragic Tuesday when their bus, which also carried kids from a second Belgian school, crashed inside a Swiss tunnel on its way home. Twenty-two youngsters from the two different schools died, along with six adults.

The dead included “teacher Frank,” who had set up the native-language Dutch blog that had kept parents and schoolchildren who stayed home informed about all the fun.

On Wednesday parents were flown to Switzerland to find out whether their children were still alive. Sixteen St. Lambertus students were confirmed to have survived, but the fate of eight others was unknown, at least to their families.

Nine days earlier, they had left for the holiday of their school lives in the snow-covered Alps of Switzerland, an annual highlight for St. Lambertus kids. The school is a typical, small Roman Catholic institution of some 200 pupils in Heverlee, on the outskirts of the old university town Leuven, and represents the broad mix of social classes of the municipality.

The week began flawlessly.

“This is our first blog posting,” wrote Frank Van Kerckhove, the teacher who set up the blog. “The bus trip was very smooth. There was little traffic. We watched the movie Avatar (and) no one became car sick on the climb” into the Alps.

In the days that followed, the youngsters posted about their vacation with youthful exuberance.

READ THE FULL STORY HERE.

Filed under: Story links

Swiss bus crash kills 28, including 22 children

By JOHN HEILPRIN and DON MELVIN

GENEVA (AP) — A tour bus slammed into a tunnel wall in the Swiss Alps in a horrific accident that killed 22 school children and six adults returning to Belgium from a joyous ski vacation, police said Wednesday.

Another 24 students were hospitalized, police spokesman Jean-Marie Bornet told The Associated Press, after one of the deadliest highway accidents in Swiss history left the front of the bus mangled, trapping some people inside. The police chief described a “scene like a war.”

The bus carrying 52 people, including students of around age 12 from two different Belgian schools, hit the tunnel wall shortly after 9 p.m. Tuesday night on a highway near the southern town of Sierre, Switzerland, in an area of popular ski resorts.

READ THE FULL STORY HERE.

Filed under: Story links