Silvio Berlusconi,
Italy's longest-serving
postwar prime minister, has railed against the country's "uncontrollable and
uncontrolled" judiciary and accused them of persecuting him with a "fury that
has no equal anywhere in the civilized world" hours after being handed his first
definitive criminal conviction in more than two decades of legal battles. In a
defiant video message broadcast on one of his own private television channels,
the billionaire centre-right leader denied having committed the tax fraud of
which he was convicted and for which he was sentenced to a four-year jail term
by Italy's supreme court. "No false invoice exists in the history of
[Berlusconi's television empire] Mediaset," he said. In the wake of the landmark
verdict, which threatened to plunge the eurozone's third-largest economy back
into political instability, he said: "In return for all this, in return for the
commitment that I have lavished on my country in the course of almost 20 years,
now almost at the end of my working life, I receive as a reward accusations and
a sentence founded on absolutely nothing which deprives me of my personal
freedom and my political rights." As Italian politics reeled from the decision
of the five judges at the court of cassation, Giorgio Napolitano, the
88-year-old president, and Enrico Letta, the centre-left prime minister in
charge of a fragile coalition with Berlusconi's Freedom People (PdL) party,
pleaded for calm to prevail. After more than seven hours of closed-door
deliberations, the judges dismissed Berlusconi's final appeal against his
convictions for the fraudulent purchase of broadcasting rights by Mediaset,
ordering him to serve a jail sentence that had already been cut to one year
according to a 2006 amnesty. Owing to Berlusconi's age – he will be 77 in
September – it will not be served in prison but through house arrest or
community service. The only element of the verdict which prevented it from being
an unmitigated disaster for the three-times prime minister was the judges'
decision to order another court to determine the length of his ban from public
office. Prosecutors this week had argued that the ban, which their lower court
equivalents had fixed at five years, should be cut to three. Had the ban been
upheld, it would have stymied Berlusconi's immediate political ambitions. As it
is, he will be able to continue as a senator in Italy's upper house of
parliament and leader of his party – although he made clear in his video message
on Thursday night that that party would not be the PdL but a revamped Forza
Italia, the party named after a football chant with which he entered politics in
1994. Even as Letta appealed in a statement for "a climate of serenity", the
huge pressure that the conviction will place on his government was starting to
show. Government under secretary Michaela Biancofiore, a member of the PdL, was
reported to have said she would be resigning in protest at the verdict. Luca
d'Alessandro, a PdL MP and secretary of the lower house of parliament's justice
commission, said: "This country was famous for being the cradle of the law.
Today it has become its tomb run by a corporation of grave diggers in gowns who
have carried out the perfect crime. Honour and solidarity with Silvio
Berlusconi, who is certainly more innocent and clean than those who unjustly
convicted him." But the verdict was thought likely to prompt equally strong
reactions within Letta's centre-left Democratic Party (PD), many of whose
members were already squeamish about joining forces with their political bête
noire and may draw the line at continuing in a coalition with a convicted
criminal. Immediately after the verdict, Nichi Vendola, head of the opposition
Left Ecology Freedom party, said it was "not possible" for the coalition to
continue. "Faced with this conviction I think it is necessary to bear the
consequences: it is not possible to imagine that the PD can remain an ally of
Silvio Berlusconi's party. It is not possible to imagine that Silvio Berlusconi
can remain at the centre of the political scene. I think that big changes are
necessary to give a moral response to the country." Beppe Grillo, the figurehead
of the anti-establishment Five Star Movement, declared on his blog: "The verdict
is like the fall of the Berlin wall in 1989." Berlusconi's lawyers were led by
Franco Coppi, a lawyer specialised in cassation appeals who successfully
defended former prime minister Giulio Andreotti against charges of mafia ties.
After the verdict they issued a statement saying they were evaluating all their
options "even at the European level so that this unjust sentence is radically
changed". Until Thursday night not a single one of Berlusconi's many court cases
had ended in his definitive conviction. Several lower grade convictions were
either thrown out, overturned on appeal or timed out owing to their statute of
limitations. On Wednesday, his defence lawyers had argued that he should be
acquitted because his political commitments meant he was not actively involved
in the company. They also argued that the crime of which he was accused was not
technically a penal offence. But prosecutors, supporting the verdicts of two
lower courts which convicted Berlusconi in October last year and again in May,
said Berlusconi's control over Mediaset was "ongoing" at the time, and he was
"the mind" behind the system of tax fraud. Berlusconi was not present at the
court but spent the day at his Rome residence, Palazzo Grazioli, reportedly with
two of his children, his closest advisers, lawyers and girlfriend Francesca
Pascale. It is not only with the court decision on his public office ban that
his legal battles will continue. In June he was given a lower-grade conviction
and sentenced to seven years in jail and a lifetime ban on public office for
paying for sex with an underage prostitute and abusing his office to cover it
up. He is appealing against the verdict – and, even if that appeal fails, he
will be allowed a second.He is also appealing against a conviction for
publishing the transcript of a leaked wiretap in his family newspaper, Il
Giornale, for which he was ordered to serve a one-year jail sentence. In
October, meanwhile, a court is due to rule on whether he should be tried for
allegedly bribing a senator to switch political sides. He denies the
allegations.
Access Investments-Building Awareness - European Union-ROMANIA
Sunday, August 4, 2013
Silvio Berlusconi,
Italy's longest-serving
postwar prime minister, has railed against the country's "uncontrollable and
uncontrolled" judiciary and accused them of persecuting him with a "fury that
has no equal anywhere in the civilized world" hours after being handed his first
definitive criminal conviction in more than two decades of legal battles. In a
defiant video message broadcast on one of his own private television channels,
the billionaire centre-right leader denied having committed the tax fraud of
which he was convicted and for which he was sentenced to a four-year jail term
by Italy's supreme court. "No false invoice exists in the history of
[Berlusconi's television empire] Mediaset," he said. In the wake of the landmark
verdict, which threatened to plunge the eurozone's third-largest economy back
into political instability, he said: "In return for all this, in return for the
commitment that I have lavished on my country in the course of almost 20 years,
now almost at the end of my working life, I receive as a reward accusations and
a sentence founded on absolutely nothing which deprives me of my personal
freedom and my political rights." As Italian politics reeled from the decision
of the five judges at the court of cassation, Giorgio Napolitano, the
88-year-old president, and Enrico Letta, the centre-left prime minister in
charge of a fragile coalition with Berlusconi's Freedom People (PdL) party,
pleaded for calm to prevail. After more than seven hours of closed-door
deliberations, the judges dismissed Berlusconi's final appeal against his
convictions for the fraudulent purchase of broadcasting rights by Mediaset,
ordering him to serve a jail sentence that had already been cut to one year
according to a 2006 amnesty. Owing to Berlusconi's age – he will be 77 in
September – it will not be served in prison but through house arrest or
community service. The only element of the verdict which prevented it from being
an unmitigated disaster for the three-times prime minister was the judges'
decision to order another court to determine the length of his ban from public
office. Prosecutors this week had argued that the ban, which their lower court
equivalents had fixed at five years, should be cut to three. Had the ban been
upheld, it would have stymied Berlusconi's immediate political ambitions. As it
is, he will be able to continue as a senator in Italy's upper house of
parliament and leader of his party – although he made clear in his video message
on Thursday night that that party would not be the PdL but a revamped Forza
Italia, the party named after a football chant with which he entered politics in
1994. Even as Letta appealed in a statement for "a climate of serenity", the
huge pressure that the conviction will place on his government was starting to
show. Government under secretary Michaela Biancofiore, a member of the PdL, was
reported to have said she would be resigning in protest at the verdict. Luca
d'Alessandro, a PdL MP and secretary of the lower house of parliament's justice
commission, said: "This country was famous for being the cradle of the law.
Today it has become its tomb run by a corporation of grave diggers in gowns who
have carried out the perfect crime. Honour and solidarity with Silvio
Berlusconi, who is certainly more innocent and clean than those who unjustly
convicted him." But the verdict was thought likely to prompt equally strong
reactions within Letta's centre-left Democratic Party (PD), many of whose
members were already squeamish about joining forces with their political bête
noire and may draw the line at continuing in a coalition with a convicted
criminal. Immediately after the verdict, Nichi Vendola, head of the opposition
Left Ecology Freedom party, said it was "not possible" for the coalition to
continue. "Faced with this conviction I think it is necessary to bear the
consequences: it is not possible to imagine that the PD can remain an ally of
Silvio Berlusconi's party. It is not possible to imagine that Silvio Berlusconi
can remain at the centre of the political scene. I think that big changes are
necessary to give a moral response to the country." Beppe Grillo, the figurehead
of the anti-establishment Five Star Movement, declared on his blog: "The verdict
is like the fall of the Berlin wall in 1989." Berlusconi's lawyers were led by
Franco Coppi, a lawyer specialised in cassation appeals who successfully
defended former prime minister Giulio Andreotti against charges of mafia ties.
After the verdict they issued a statement saying they were evaluating all their
options "even at the European level so that this unjust sentence is radically
changed". Until Thursday night not a single one of Berlusconi's many court cases
had ended in his definitive conviction. Several lower grade convictions were
either thrown out, overturned on appeal or timed out owing to their statute of
limitations. On Wednesday, his defence lawyers had argued that he should be
acquitted because his political commitments meant he was not actively involved
in the company. They also argued that the crime of which he was accused was not
technically a penal offence. But prosecutors, supporting the verdicts of two
lower courts which convicted Berlusconi in October last year and again in May,
said Berlusconi's control over Mediaset was "ongoing" at the time, and he was
"the mind" behind the system of tax fraud. Berlusconi was not present at the
court but spent the day at his Rome residence, Palazzo Grazioli, reportedly with
two of his children, his closest advisers, lawyers and girlfriend Francesca
Pascale. It is not only with the court decision on his public office ban that
his legal battles will continue. In June he was given a lower-grade conviction
and sentenced to seven years in jail and a lifetime ban on public office for
paying for sex with an underage prostitute and abusing his office to cover it
up. He is appealing against the verdict – and, even if that appeal fails, he
will be allowed a second.He is also appealing against a conviction for
publishing the transcript of a leaked wiretap in his family newspaper, Il
Giornale, for which he was ordered to serve a one-year jail sentence. In
October, meanwhile, a court is due to rule on whether he should be tried for
allegedly bribing a senator to switch political sides. He denies the
allegations.
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Interpol has issued a global security alert in connection with suspected al-Qaida involvement in several recent prison escapes including those in Iraq, Libya and Pakistan.
The Lyon, France-based international police agency says that the alert follows “the escape of hundreds of terrorists and other criminals” in the past month. The alert calls on Interpol’s 190 member countries to help determine whether these events are coordinated or linked, the organization said in a statement Saturday.
Interpol says it issues such alerts fairly regularly, the last one 10 days ago following jailbreaks from Iraq’s infamous Abu Ghraib prison and the Taji prison near Baghdad.
The alert also comes a day after the U.S. issued an extraordinary global travel warning to Americans about a possible al-Qaida attack.
The U.S. is closing 21 of its embassies and consulates in the Muslim world this weekend, while Britain, France and Germany have announced the closures of their embassies in Yemen’s capital, Sanaa.
These jumpeThe Switzerland-based watchdog said unprecedented imbalances have built up in the global system and these are failing to self-correct because the mechanism is jammed. The worst distortions are within Europe where monetary union drama is really a "balance-of-payments crisis" in disguise, caused by misaligned exchange rates. "The creation of a common currency removed the nominal exchange rate as an adjustment mechanism," said the report, "Caveat creditor".
The BIS said European banks played a huge role in stoking the pre-Lehman credit bubble. They rotated $1.25 trillion into US debt alone between 2003 and 2007, greater than the combined purchases of Asia and OPEC. It said banks funnelled money into southern Europe regardless of risk in "expectations of a bail-out" if any country got into trouble.
"European banks were negligent in assuming – and their regulators in allowing – such exposures. Overlending was as responsible for the ensuing crisis as over-borrowing."
The Club Med debtor states are now being forced to slash spending without offsetting stimulus in the creditor bloc. This creates a deflationary bias making it even harder for them to repay debts. "Widespread defaults would hurt lenders in surplus countries," said the BIS.
The watchdog called for "symmetry in adjustment between creditors and debtors" to avoid repeating the 1930s, warning that global recovery will remain stunted until the creditors chip in. It said there had been an "extraordinary explosion" of cross-border assets before the global crisis, due chiefly to the chronic surpluses of the creditors.
d from 50pc of global GDP in the mid-1990s to 180pc in 2007, and have yet to reverse much. Germany is still sitting on current account surplus of 6pc of GDP.
The surplus states are continuing to plug the deficits of debtors through vendor financing. This is an inherently "dangerous" structure. Capital flows can be cut off at any time, with "devastating consequences", it said.
So, I lend money to someone - then to stop that someone going bankrupt, I write off the loan and loan him some more?
Though in this case - it means pensioners in solvent states writing off their retirement plans so that the € can be saved a bit more and the PIIGS don't go bust?
The € is just doomed - how this crippled currency union continues on is as miraculous as turning water to wine.
I find it hard to believe the BIS thinks that a brave new world can emerge if only those who still have some cash give it to those who do not.
If on the other hand they mean that those who are still prudent become imprudent and litter their economies with pointless projects and shed loads of tat just to keep the Chinese export industry ticking over I cannot think of a quicker way to destroy the world...certainly to decimate its resources to no good end whatsoever.
But what do I know?
"The BIS said European banks played a huge role in stoking the pre-Lehman credit bubble".
Is it Euro-bashing or European Banks bashing. There is a vast difference, you know. UK and Swiss banks are amongst the largest in Europe.
"Widespread defaults would hurt lenders in surplus countries," said the BIS". Do we need the BIS to explain such basics?
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Commenter's avatar wantonone
20 minutes ago
There are few things I know for sure but borrowing for consumption is not the same as borrowing for investment.
I borrowed big time in the mid 80s and built a big house, then I borrowed big time and got planning for 6 flats I sold everything in august 1989 a month later the market tanked. I had a 4 bed house paid for in Dorset England by the time I was 29 years old.
Not bad for a self employed carpenter, with two boys.
In 2009 I put everything into gold I sold at 1700 and bought fields, still I am not out of the woods.
I have a chance, man I worked my guts out but what will I do when I am old?
All these talking heads saying you did not do it right, what did they expect?
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