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EU Parliament president warns Athens of dramatic consequences if talks fail

BERLIN European Parliament President Martin Schulz urged Greece in a newspaper interview to accept a proposal by its international lenders for a cash-for-reforms deal, warning Athens that failing to reach an agreement would have "dramatic" consequences. The European Union is willing to compromise with the Greek government, Schulz told German newspaper Welt am Sonntag in an interview published on Sunday, adding that the lenders had already made concessions in the debt negotiations. "I can only warn the Greek government against turning down the hand held out to them," Schulz, who has been supportive of Greece’s cause, said. "Time is running out and the consequences would be dramatic." Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras has spurned the terms of proposed aid from lenders, creating an impasse that threatens to push Greece into default and out of the euro zone. Schulz said Tsipras and his Syriza party should come to terms with […]

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EU chief rebukes Greece, demands swift debt plan

KRUEN, Germany The European Union’s exasperation with Greece burst into the open on Sunday when its chief executive rebuked leftist Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras and warned that time was running out to conclude a debt deal to avert a damaging Greek default. In unusually sharp terms, European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker accused Tsipras of distorting proposals by international creditors for a cash-for-reform agreement and of dragging his feet in offering an alternative. He urged Athens to put its own ideas on the table swiftly to enable talks to resume on the sidelines of an EU-Latin America summit on Wednesday in Brussels. U.S. President Barack Obama discussed the Greek crisis with German Chancellor Angela Merkel in private talks before a Group of Seven industrial nations’ summit in Germany and expressed hope that Greece and its partners would chart a course without causing volatility in financial markets, the White House said. […]

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Greece and Ukraine crises drown out G7 summit agenda

GARMISCH-PARTENKIRCHEN, Germany Leaders from the Group of Seven (G7) industrial nations meet on Sunday in the Bavarian Alps for a summit overshadowed by Greece’s debt crisis and ongoing violence in Ukraine. Host Angela Merkel is hoping to secure commitments from her G7 guests to tackle global warming to build momentum in the run-up to a major United Nations climate summit in Paris in December. The German agenda also foresees discussions on global health issues, from Ebola to antibiotics and tropical diseases. But on the evening before the German chancellor welcomes the leaders of Britain, Canada, France, Italy, Japan and the United States, she and French President Francois Hollande were forced into their fourth emergency phone call in 10 days with Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras to try to break a deadlock between Athens and its international creditors. The two sides have been wrangling for months over the terms of […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
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If You Think Greece’s Crisis Will End Soon, Think Again

Frustrated by Greece’s cat and mouse game with its creditors? Get used to it. Even if Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras clinches as much as 7.2 billion euros ($8 billion) from a bailout tranche creditors are withholding, he’s going to need another cash infusion shortly thereafter. What will ensue is a renewed battle after almost five months of trench warfare. The beleaguered country requires a third bailout of about 30 billion euros, according to Nomura International Plc analysts Lefteris Farmakis and Dimitris Drakopoulos. The final bill will depend on whether fellow euro member states grant Greece any debt relief, and what form that relief would take, they said. Tsipras says any aid must be on his terms rather than those of governments whose taxpayers have forked out billions in the past five years to keep Greece in the euro. The standoff has triggered an unprecedented liquidity squeeze, pushing the country’s […]

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Russia Wields Aid and Ideology Against West to Fight Sanctions

Photo Marine Le Pen of France’s National Front in Moscow in May. Her party has taken money from a bank tied to the Kremlin. Credit Kirill Kudryavtsev/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images WASHINGTON — The war in Ukraine that has pitted Russia against the West is being waged not just with tanks, artillery and troops. Increasingly, Moscow has brought to bear different kinds of weapons, according to American and European officials: money, ideology and disinformation. Even as the Obama administration and its European allies try to counter Russia’s military intervention across its border, they have found themselves struggling at home against what they see as a concerted drive by Moscow to leverage its economic power, finance European political parties and movements, and spread alternative accounts of the conflict. The Kremlin’s goal seems to be to sow division, destabilize the European Union and possibly fracture what until now has been a […]

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7 Epic Droughts Devastating the Planet

Every inhabited continent, to varying degrees, faces extremely high water stress. That means that in certain areas more than 80 percent of the local water supply is withdrawn by businesses, farmers, residents and other consumers every year. Not all of that water is consumed—it may flow back into a river after it’s used and be available again downstream—but the demand still creates competition where it is needed. These wetlands have totally dried up due to the California drought. Photo credit: Shutterstock These “stressed” areas are also the ones most vulnerable to episodic droughts . With chronic over-use of water resources, it only takes a string of a few bad rainfall years or poor management decisions to plunge a region into crisis and chaos. And indeed, that is what we appear to be seeing across the world over the past few years. Here’s a look at seven extreme droughts that […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
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Oil Prices Climb But Post Weekly Loss

NEW YORK—Oil prices rose Friday on a drop in U.S. drilling, but posted a decline for the week as a stronger dollar and continued oversupply of crude oil weighed on the market. Prices are more than 40% below their June highs, as the global market remains oversupplied. Traders are parsing supply-and-demand data from the U.S. and overseas for clues of when the market will come back into balance, either through lower production or improving consumption. Market watchers remain divided about the near-term direction of oil prices. Some say prices will continue rising as demand keeps rising and U.S. shale-oil production falls following sharp cutbacks in drilling. Others say that the physical market remains oversupplied, with some cargoes of crude oil searching for buyers, and prices are set for another decline. Light, sweet crude for July delivery settled up $1.13, or 1.9%, at $59.13 a barrel on the New York […]

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OPEC keeps its 30 million b/d crude oil output ceiling, to meet next on Dec 4

As expected, OPEC ministers agreed to maintain official crude output at 30 million b/d, with the oil producer group’s Gulf Arab members particularly upbeat about the decision. "Same ceiling, 30 million b/d," Saudi Arabian oil minister Ali Naimi told reporters as he left OPEC’s secretariat in the Austrian capital. "You will be surprised by how amicable the meeting was," Naimi said, adding that OPEC would next meet on December 4. UAE oil minister Suhail al-Mazrouei said he was "very happy," while Kuwait’s Ali al-Omair emerged giving the thumbs-up sign. "It is a very good one," Omair said. Analysis continues below… Oilgram News brings you fast-breaking global petroleum and gas news on and including: Industry players, upstream and downstream markets, refineries, midstream transportation and financial reports Supply and demand trends, government actions, exploration and technology Daily futures summary Weekly API statistics, and much more And Qatar’s Mohammed al-Sada described the […]

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OPEC Keeps Output Unchanged

VIENNA—OPEC on Friday said the cartel would keep its collective output level unchanged at 30 million barrels a day, the second time in six months it decided to take no action amid a global glut of crude and weak oil prices. The decision amounted to an acknowledgment that the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries’ role had fundamentally changed in the past year with a flood of American oil extracted from shale rock . No longer can the group—which pumps about one in three barrels of oil consumed each day—throttle back on output to support prices that have fallen from $114 a barrel to less than $63 today. “The reality now is that we cannot have this $100 (a barrel) anymore. This is a fact. We have less value for our barrels,” OPEC Secretary General Abdallah Salem el-Badri said at a news conference. Friday’s decision affirms its decision last […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple