Vaclav Havel dies age 75

Vaclav Havel, the dissident playwright who turned to politics to help peacefully bring down communism in Czechoslovakia, has died at the age of 75. independent

Ours british allies *

IMF-EU loan in doubt after Britain refuses to lend £25bn

* (surely?!)


One trillion euros baby

Klaas Knot, head of the Dutch Central Bank and an ECB board member, suggested that it was European leaders who need to make the next move. He said that the debt crisis could be solved if the euro zone would boost its financial rescue fund to €1 trillion.
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There were, however, at least a couple of bright spots this week. For one, a Spanish bond offering came off much better than expected, with interest rates down over recent weeks. And Russia has indicated a willingness to pay €10 billion into an International Monetary Fund plan to prop up the euro. Weidmann had threatened not to participate if there was no help from outside of the euro zone. spiegel


Divisions in eurozone over ECB bond-buying

In the interview he said: “It is the fundamental arrangement of this currency union that it does not allow the monetary funding of sovereign debt by the ECB. Without these rules, there would be no economic and currency union.”

So far the ECB has bought €210bn (£176bn) of state debt. The controversial move has been supported by the UK, France and the USA, but opposed by Germany. The reasons behind Mr Stark’s resignation go some way to revealing how deep the opposition to monetary intervention runs.
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However, he added: “It’s the immediate crisis that must be addressed. That means a credible plan for the bond markets on the risks of sovereign insolvency.

“Institutional reform may or may not help for the longer term, but it won’t alleviate the immediate crisis. If not addressed, it has the potential to provoke a crisis of Western capitalism.” telegraph

Note: The End of the History?

Rogues and thieves have become billionaires

This handful of attendants and Media continue to convince us that the falsification of the vote in favor of the party of crooks and thieves is a necessary condition for the existence of hot tap water and cheap mortgages. navalny.livejournal.com


Censorship Tendencies

The murders of journalists in Russia, the jailing of bloggers in China, and the crackdown on the media in Iran regularly remind us that freedom of expression is under duress, even in an era of expanding global communications. rferl.org

Go to Twentyvoices

Wave of self-immolation

Chinese oppression leads Buddhist monks to resort to desperate protest. independent

My pro-Tibet's blog

Saudi Woman Beheaded for 'Witchcraft'

A Saudi woman was beheaded after being convicted of practicing "witchcraft and sorcery," according to the Saudi Interior Ministry, at least the second such execution for sorcery this year.

The woman, Amina bint Abdulhalim Nassar, was executed in the northern Saudi province of al-Jawf on Monday.


In the meantime...

The £2million heist ($3,099,000) was the royal family's "holiday spending money" set aside for its visit to London on June 24.

Basically pocket money...

Britain & EU

The Failure of a Forced Marriage


What would really happen?

Interestingly enough, German bank Deutsche Bank is the single largest employer in the financial services sector in London. If we are no longer part of the EU – with no influence over future financial regulation in the currency bloc – will big banks want to be based in London? uk.finance.yahoo


To defend one of the prime culprits

It is known that Vince Cable, the business secretary, and Chris Huhne, the energy secretary, were less eager to see the UK sacrifice its role in Europe to defend a deregulated City of London, one of the prime culprits for the credit crunch. guardian


The European Union dropped the hypocrisy

The European Union on Thursday night dropped the hypocrisy. No longer is harmony the overriding goal. That, though, means that Great Britain may no longer have a place at the table. spiegel


For your own sake and for ours

Prophecies of doom are mounting as the euro zone hurtles deeper into crisis, and the world pins its hopes on Germany to solve it. The country has been thrust into a leadership role it has avoided for decades, isolating Berlin from its partners, say commentators. Poland's foreign minister has implored the country to save the euro "for your own sake and for ours." spiegel

Note: mainly for ours...


Economic and political union

A monetary union, a currency, needs an economic and political union to walk properly. The markets were targeting that weakness in the euro's construction. But Barroso also delivered a message that went to the emotional core of the European project. Born in the aftermath of war, ruin and destitution, surely the European project could cope with an army of bond traders, however powerful. guardian

Note 1: '"What's the alternative?" asks one senior EU official. "We have seen democracies outstripped by the markets, which have forced decisions on elected governments. So that democratic freedom has been curtailed. How do you respond? Do you let that continue, or do you move towards stronger economic governance? And which is more legitimate, the rule of the markets or economic governance by representative institutions in which governments have a say?"'

Note 2: "People are ready to change when they understand there is no alternative."


Believe it or not *

Believe it or not, but Greece, with a population of 11 million and economy a sixth the size of the United Kingdom, is one of the most important factors for the global economy right now.

It was the source of Europe's sovereign debt crisis after it was revealed more than two years ago that the southern European nation had borrowed more than double what it could afford to pay back.

Combine that with a problematic tax system - reports suggest there are more Porsche Cayennes in Greece than people who declare to the tax authorities earnings over €50,000 - and you can see how its fragile debt dynamics came crashing down. yahoo/forex

* Greece is a failed state because the corruption. And Italy? *

* (and Portugal? Where its despotic and corrupt "elite" - public or private, usually "mix" - take anything and everything from the public domain and from the public treasury!)

Blair and Andrew's mutual interest

The Duke of York is not alone in his fondness for Kazakhstan, the country whose president’s son-in-law bought his hideous house, Sunninghill, for £3 million above the asking price.

The gold-digger Tony Blair’s globetrotting also took him to the door of Nursultan Nazarbayev, the long-time ruler of Kazakhstan, back in 2008.
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The U.S. State Department has made the following observations about Kazakhstan: ‘Severe limits on ability to change their government; detainee and prisoner torture and other abuse; unhealthy prison conditions; arbitrary arrest and detention; lack of an independent judiciary; restrictions on freedom of speech, pervasive corruption, especially in law enforcement and the judicial system; discrimination and violence against women; trafficking in persons.’ dailymail


Underground Great Wall

The Chinese have called it their “Underground Great Wall” — a vast network of tunnels designed to hide their country’s increasingly sophisticated missile and nuclear arsenal. yahoo/WP


Will WW III be between the U.S. and China?

The country imprisons Nobel prizewinners such as the political activist and writer Liu Xiaobo, steals intellectual property and technological know-how from every nation with which it does business and strives to deny its people access to information through internet censorship.

The people of Tibet suffer relentless persecution from their Chinese occupiers, while Western leaders who meet the Dalai Lama are snubbed in consequence.

Other Asian nations are appalled by China’s campaign to dominate the Western Pacific. Japan’s fears of Chinese-North Korean behaviour are becoming so acute that the country might even abandon decades of eschewing nuclear weapons, to create a deterrent. dailymail


My small contribuition to the Tibetan People and Culture

"Chop the head of the snake"

Israel is not alone in talking about military action against Iran. Among the state department documents disclosed by WikiLeaks was one in Saudi Arabia called for action to chop what it called "the head of the snake". guardian

Note: we should look at how the iranian opposition as completely smashed by the regime.

Offices Of Charlie Hebdo Destroyed

According to a slew of international news wire stories this morning, the Paris offices of the satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo were destroyed in the early hours of Wednesday by a petrol bomb. This comes on the day they released their latest issue re-named "Sharia Hebdo" and featuring the Prophet Muhammed on the cover announcing punishment for everyone not laughing. The insides feature an editorial written by Muhammed in much the same vein. In a PR move yesterday, the magazine named the Prophet the magazine's editor-in-chief for that issue. comicsreporter

It’s a fucking outrage!

Letter from a Cairo cell

After Egypt's revolution, I never expected to be back in Mubarak's jails. I have been locked up, again on a set of flimsy charges, five years after imprisonment for supporting the judiciary. guardian

Crimes against the humanity

"Based on available information, the special advisers consider that the scale and gravity of the violations indicate a serious possibility that crimes against humanity may have been committed and continue to be committed in Syria," the advisers said in a statement. haaretz


Assad's crackdown killed more than 3,500

More than 3,500 people have been killed in Syria's crackdown on protesters, the United Nations said on Tuesday, as the military pressed its campaign to put down resistance against President Bashar Assad's rule in the city of Homs. haaretz


Arab League votes to suspend Syria if doesn't end violence

President Bashar al-Assad given ultimatum to rein in his troops or face economic and political sanctions. guardian

Note: a bit late, isn't?

Merkel and Sarkozy are right about a Tobin tax

Some taxes have a large distortionary effect on economic activity — with a financial transactions tax, the worry is that investment activity will be curtailed– and others have a much smaller effect. Some taxes can even make markets work better, e.g. taxes that force firms to internalize pollution costs and other externalities improves the decisions firms make. From society’s point of view, they are more, not less efficient. Thus, in designing a tax system, we should look for taxes that provide the most revenue at the least cost.

So is a financial transactions tax a highly distortionary, costly tax? The answer is no. The tax would discourage short-term speculative activity, but much of this activity provides little social value. It pushes money around among winners and losers, and traders like it for that reason, but if this activity is discouraged through taxation it would have little effect on long-term investment decisions by firms. For example, one thing this would discourage is high frequency computer trading to exploit minute differences in prices. Does it really matter for long-term investment if these differences persist for a few seconds or minutes more?

In fact, there’s even an argument that this tax will improve the efficiency of financial markets. The late economist James Tobin, the originator of the tax, argued that speculative activity causes harmful fluctuations in financial markets. For example, pursuit of speculative gains can cause firms to increase leverage, and if a financial crisis hits it can be very disruptive to the economy when firm are forced to unwind that leverage quickly. That wouldn’t be so much of a problem if the costs fell only on those making the decision to take on so much leverage. But, unfortunately, as we have seen in this crisis, the costs can be very large and spread beyond the firms and individuals making the decision to take on so much risk. Thus, just as with pollution there are externalities — costs that fall on the innocent — and to the extent that a transactions tax forces firms to internalize the costs of their decisions, it improves rather than hinders the efficiency of financial markets.

There is one potential problem however: the ability to avoid the tax by moving activity elsewhere. But I don’t see this as a huge worry. Trading is mostly carried out on centralized exchanges, so keeping track of the transactions and taxing them isn’t that hard (the UK has had a tax on stocks for some time, and that hasn’t driven all activity elsewhere). Nevertheless, if the U.S. were to follow suit, as I think it should — it could raise hundreds of billions a year in revenue with minimal distortions — that would help to prevent evasive activity.

A financial transactions tax raises considerable revenue with minimal distortions to long-run investment activity; there’s even an argument that it improves efficiency by forcing firms to pay the full cost of their speculative activity. In addition, it helps to insulate the economy from the fallout when there is a financial crisis. Mark Thoma in blogs.reuters.com

Nelson Freire gives an electrifying performance of the Liszt sonata in B minor at the University of Maryland in 1982

Liszt

Franz Liszt (October 22, 1811 – July 31, 1886) was a 19th-century Hungarian composer, pianist, conductor, and teacher. Liszt became renowned throughout Europe during the nineteenth century for his virtuosic skill as a pianist. He was said by his contemporaries to have been the most technically advanced pianist of his age and perhaps the greatest pianist of all time. He was also a well-known composer, piano teacher, and conductor who contributed significantly to the modern development of the art. He was a benefactor to other composers, including Richard Wagner, Hector Berlioz, Camille Saint-Saëns, Edvard Grieg and Alexander Borodin. wikipedia

Beijing: A Tibetan nun has set herself on fire in western China, the latest in a series of self-immolations among the region's Buddhist clergy, an advocacy group said Tuesday. In a separate incident, security forces shot two Tibetans during a protest outside a police station, London-based Free Tibet reported. The two incidents could not immediately be independently confirmed Tuesday, although tensions have been high across the region since widespread anti-government protests in 2008. Communist government officials gave no comment when contacted.

Free Tibet said the nun, 20-year-old Tenzin Wangmo, died after setting herself on fire Monday outside Dechen Chokorling nunnery in Sichuan province's Aba prefecture where a number of other self-immolations have taken place this year. The group said she chanted slogans as she set herself alight calling for greater religious freedom and the return of Tibet's exiled Buddhist leader, the Dalai Lama.

The two men shot Sunday in Sichuan's Garze prefecture, identified as Dawa and Druklo, were taken away by area residents and their conditions were unknown, Free Tibet said. Many Tibetans use just one name. Although there is no tradition of self-immolation as a form of protest in Tibetan society, a total of nine monks and nuns have set themselves on fire since March in what are considered desperate acts to draw attention to repression of Tibetan Buddhism. newsbullet

Stop Syria's horror hospitals

The Syrian regime has reached a new low -- its death squads are using ambulances and hospitals to lure and kill wounded protesters. But Russia, Syria's key backer and arms supplier, could bring an end to this carnage.

There are two governments that can influence Russia -- Turkey and Germany -- both of them support the Syrian democracy protesters and have strong ties with Russia. If we call on them to act now, they could weigh in behind mounting regional pressure and push Russian President Medvedev to stop propping up this brutal regime and help urgent global action.

Syria's horror hospitals are the latest in a string of unspeakable crimes against peaceful protesters. So far, Russia has faced little condemnation for its complicity in these atrocities, but we can change that. Let's build a massive petition to Merkel and Erdogan now to speak out and work with the Arab League to stop the brutality. Sign now, and share this with everyone -- it will be delivered to their Foreign Ministries this week. avaaz

24 dead after Coptic church protest

At least 24 people have been killed and more than 200 wounded in the worst violence since Egypt's former President Hosni Mubarak was ousted in February. bbc

IRAN

The constitution states that Islam is the official state religion, and the doctrine followed is that of Ja'afari (Twelver) Shiism. The constitution provides that "other Islamic denominations are to be accorded full respect," while the country's pre-Islamic religious groups -- Zoroastrians, Christians, and Jews -- are recognized as "protected" religious minorities. The fourth article of the constitution states that all laws and regulations must be based on Islamic criteria an official interpretation of Sharia (Islamic Law).
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Government rhetoric and actions created a threatening atmosphere for nearly all non-Shia religious groups, most notably for Bahais, as well as Sufi Muslims, evangelical Christians, Jews, and Shia groups that do not share the government's official religious views. Reports of government imprisonment, harassment, intimidation, and discrimination based on religious beliefs continued during the reporting period. Bahai religious groups reportedarbitrary arrest and prolonged detention, expulsions from universities, and confiscation of property.

During the reporting period government-controlled broadcast and print media intensified negative campaigns against religious minorities, particularly the Bahais. All non-Shia religious minorities suffered varying degrees of officially sanctioned discrimination, particularly in the areas of employment, education, and housing. scribd


Iranian actress sentenced to 90 lashes

An Iranian actress has been sentenced to 90 lashes and a year in prison for starring in a film that shows artistic repression in the country, according to the Sydney Morning Herald.

Marzieh Vafamehr was arrested in July and received her sentence at the weekend.

In the 2009 film, ‘My Tehran for Sale’, Vafamehr plays an actress whose work is banned by authorities and is forced to lead a secret life to express herself artistically.

Vafamehr often appears with a shaved head and no headscarf, and there are scenes of drug use in the film, according to Iranian opposition website kalameh.com. yahoo


Court upholds sentence against Jafar Panahi

TEHRAN: A Tehran appeals court has upheld a six-year jail sentence and 20-year filmmaking and travel ban against international award-winning Iranian director Jafar Panahi, his family told AFP on Saturday.

The verdict, handed down around two weeks ago, has not yet been carried out, the family said.

The government-run newspaper Iran confirmed the ruling in its Saturday edition, saying: "The charges he was sentenced for are acting against national security and propaganda against the regime." thenews

Italy's inconclusive justice

There's barely one iconic crime from the post-war years that has persuaded the country that, yes, justice has been done: the murder of Pier Paolo Pasolini, the Ustica crash, the Bologna railway station bombing, the Piazza Fontana atrocity, the Monster of Florence murders, the murder of Luigi Calabresi, the "caso Cogne" … none has ever been satisfactorily, convincingly resolved. Instead the country seems to split into innocentisti and colpevolisti (those who believe in the innocence or guilt of the accused) and the heated debates continue for decades. guardian

Note: in Portugal my teacher Padre Max was killed (April 2 - 1976) by a sofisticated (for the 70's) bomb engine and no one was found guilty. It was the Right (of course) - because they never accepted a priest of the catholic church to be in an far-left political party - but the Right had very known faces.

Empathic Dialogue

“It is time for us to greet each other not only as a standard salutation but should be meant as a sincere prayer, recognition and respect of faith, and manifestation of a person’s religious identity. Say assalamu’alaikum (peace be with you) to Muslims. Say shalom (peace) to Christians. Say namo Buddhaya (I pay homage to the Buddha) or namaste (I bow to you) to followers of Buddhism. Say om swastiastu (May We be Under His Protection) to Hindus. And the same goes for the believers of other faiths.” islamlib

Youcef Nadarkhani Refuses to Recant

Yousef is from Rasht, Gilan. He is pastor for a network of Christian house churches. He is married to Fatemah Pasindedih, and they have two children, ages 8 and 6.

Yousef was first imprisoned in December 2006, on the charges of apostasy from and evangelism to Muslims. He was released two weeks later, without being charged.

In 2009, Yousef discovered a recent change in Iranian educational policy that forced all students, including his children, to read from the Qur'an. After Youcef heard about this change, he went to the school and protested, based on the fact that the Iranian constitution guarantees freedom to practice religion. His protest was reported to the police, who arrested him and placed him before a tribunal on October 12, 2009, on charges of protesting.

The charges were later changed to apostasy and evangelism, the same charges he was initially arrested under in 2006. On September 21–22, 2010, Youcef appeared before the 11th Chamber of The Assize Court of the province of Gilan and sentenced to death for the charge of apostasy. Yousef's lawyer, Nasser Sarbaz, claims there were numerous procedural errors during Yousef's trial.

After conviction Youcef was transferred to a prison for political prisoners, and denied all access to his family and attorney. The delivery of Youcef's written verdict was delayed by Iran's security officials. Christians believe the delay in execution is an attempt by Iran's secret police to force Youcef to recant Christianity. wikipedia

Crackdown on tax evaders

19.45 Britain and Germany have signed deals with Switzerland to get at funds hidden there by their citizens and extract tax. Now Italy's Senate has urged its government to do the same.

The move would be the latest step in a crackdown on tax evaders in Italy, which saw an advertising campaign launched in August labeling them "parasites on society" that cost €100 billion a year. telegraph


The End of Offshore Banking

The recent actions by the US Justice Department and the IRS against the UBS highlight the increasing pressure on the so called offshore banking model. Private Banks in Switzerland, Liechtenstein, Luxembourg, Austria, Singapore, and many Caribbean jurisdictions are well known for managing money which has left the home country of his owner without taxation. banking


Greed at the highest levels of Wall Street

NEW YORK (AP) — A former board member of Goldman Sachs and Procter & Gamble surrendered Wednesday after a federal indictment was unsealed accusing him of acting as "the illegal eyes and ears in the boardroom" for a friend who was already convicted in the biggest insider trading case in history. The case, built partially on use of wiretaps for the first time in insider trading, stands to offer unprecedented insight into allegations of greed at the highest levels of Wall Street. yahoo/AP

Action is needed

Credit markets are gumming up again, business and consumer confidence is falling off a cliff, and there is a growing sense of panic over Europe’s apparent inability to act. The damage caused by a rogue trader at the Swiss banking giant UBS (NYSEArca: DJCI - news) has added to the impression of a wholly dysfunctional, out-of-control financial system. yahoo/telegraph


Divide and Rescue

Chancellor Angela Merkel has always rejected a two-track Europe. But with the euro crisis persisting, Berlin is now considering far-reaching new powers for the Euro Group - to the detriment of the European Commission. spiegel

Note: there's no way with types like grecs and corrupts as the portuguese politicians, the "great" portuguese administrators, a huge slice of the portuguese lawyers & solicitors and some magistrates are. Have to choose between maniacs (like the Germans) or corrupts (like the Portuguese) is the main evidence of how patetic Europe is. Austrians are - perhaps - more maniacs than Germans? Perhaps...

But the question is: why the UE gave so many money for that "mediterranean" and "balcanic" countries, without a tight control? In fact it was a bit perverse because the UE knowed that even if the money w'd go trought the corrupt channels it w'd finish in european cars and european goods, wich did increase the German and French (the British in some way) industries. So German and France (England in some way) are  responsibles for the "mediterranean" and "balcanic" caos, corruption and bankruptcy and should fix it.

(Even if the British are not europeans. They are... "liberals"... But still accountables.)

(Romanians, and some others, are corrupts, mafious and violents. Wich criteria has had the European Comission, and Mr. Barroso, to lead them inside the EU?)

Crossing the Tibetan plateau (2010)

Evicted from home

DETROIT (AP) — A 101-year-old woman was evicted from the southwest Detroit home where she lived for nearly six decades after her 65-year-old son failed to pay the mortgage. yahoo/AP

Richard William Hamilton

24 February 1922 – 13 September 2011

Was a British painter and collage artist. His 1956 collage, Just what is it that makes today's homes so different, so appealing?, produced for the This Is Tomorrow exhibition of the Independent Group in London, is considered by critics and historians to be one of the early works of pop art. wikipedia

Opposition activists brutally treated

The BN (National Front) government, dominated by UMNO (United Malay National Organisation), is going all out, including by using repression and intimidation, to strengthen its position in the next general election expected soon - either this year or early next year. It was alarmed by the unprecedented victories in the 2008 general election of the opposition Pakatan Rakyat (People’s Coalition) which denied them their two-thirds majority after almost four decades in power. In that election, the Pakatan Rakyat capitalised on the momentum created by the rallies organised by BERSIH (Coalition for Fair and Clean Elections), which demanded clean and fair elections, and by HINDRAF (Hindu Rights Action Force) which demanded rights for the Indian minority in November 2007, to weaken BN support. Now, to suppress similar attempts, BN is going all out to stop a repeat of the same process, in order to continuously sustain its more than 50 years in power since independence from British rule in 1957. chinaworker

Note: very, very interesting. How about human rights and freedom of speech in China?


Fear of false accusations and blackmail

In China, an elderly man falls, bleeds from the head, but no one stops to help him. The case becomes a cause celebre. Online surveys indicate that most people would not help for fear of false accusations and blackmail. asianews

Asia Bibi

In June 2009, Asia Noreen, a farm hand from the village of Ittan Wali in Sheikhupura District, was asked to fetch water; she complied, but some of her Muslim fellow workers refused to drink the water as they considered Christians to be "unclean". Apparently some arguments ensued. There had already been a running feud between Noreen and a neighbour about some property damage. Later some coworkers complained to a cleric that Noreen made derogatory comments about Prophet Muhammad. A mob came to her house, beating her and members of her family before she was rescued by the police. However, the police initiated an investigation about her remarks, resulting in her arrest and prosecution under Section 295 C of the Pakistan Penal Code. She spent more than a year in jail. In November 2010 Muhammed Naveed Iqbal, judge at the court of Sheikhupura, Punjab, sentenced her to death by hanging. Additionally, a fine of an equivalent of $1,100 was imposed. wikipedia

Note: that people dosn't deserve any help. That people should be let to their "karma".


Muslims oppose 'religion-neutral flag' proposal

Ivica Petrusic, vice president of immigrant association Secondos Plus suggests dropping the cross from the Swiss flag and adopting a different flag instead. "The Swiss cross no longer suits today's multicultural Switzerland," says Petrusic. Instead, Petrusic suggests using the green, red and yellow flag of the short-lived Helvetic Republic (1799)

Petrusic says he himself is Christian, but he does not think a Christian symbol should be used in a country with so many atheists and people who profess other religions. He says the cross does not represent the religious and cultural diversity in Switzerland today.

His proposal met with broad opposition. Hisham Maizar, head of Federation of Islamic Organisations in Switzerland said the proposal for a religion-neutral flag was counter-productive. "We don't have any demands to upend the ancient traditions of other countries." islamineurope

Note: this is probably a (funny) joke. Since then the immigrants can change the flag of the countries did accept them?

Al-Qaeda links

Abdel-Hakim al-Hasidi, the Libyan rebel leader, has said jihadists who fought against allied troops in Iraq are on the front lines of the battle against Muammar Gaddafi's regime. telegraph

Islam and democracy

“OF COURSE they say nice things these days,” says a Lebanese woman, a sophisticated Sunni Muslim in her 50s, gliding between English, French and Arabic. “They know who they’re talking to. But you cannot trust them—absolutely not.” economist


Dreaming of a caliphate

The Koran mandates flogging for unlawful sex, and a strongly held tradition ascribes to Muhammad the view that adulterers should be stoned to death. Over inheritance, the Koran is also specific—a daughter is entitled to have half as much as a son—and the various legal schools of Islam are even more so, setting out with absolute precision the entitlement of each distant relative. economist

Are Political Suicides Needed?

The situation can only get worse, since nobody's interests align. The Greeks want more time to meet their budget targets without having to make more cuts that would cause more public angst. The Germans, whose opinions arguably matter the most since they have the financial ammo, are already in a huff with German Chancellor Angela Merkel about expanding the eurozone's bailout fund. More pushback from Greece about meeting its current austerity measures only fuels the fire. The ECB, meanwhile, is struggling to salvage its cherished reputation after vacuuming up billions of dollars in dodgy European sovereign debt, so more slack from its camp is also a tall order. And dinky Finland is making a fuss by demanding collateral for any more cash it forks over to Greece. curiouscapitalist