As he desperately tries to squash a popular rebellion, Libyan ruler Moammar Gaddafi is banking on the loyalty of a close circle of relatives and security officials whose personal fates depend on his survival, according to U.S. officials and analysts. Among them are four of his sons and two longtime spy chiefs accused of directing a series of assassination and terrorist plots during Gaddafi's four decades in power. While numerous Libyan diplomats and government officials have defected or abandoned Gaddafi in recent days, analysts said it is unlikely that his inner core will follow suit.
"The people who are in the bunker with him, they have pretty good reasons for sticking by Gaddafi," said John Hamilton, a Libya expert with Cross Border International, a British publishing and consulting firm that specializes in North Africa. "It's a bit late for the sons to revolt against their father . . . There's really nowhere for the others to turn, either." (W.P)

Mămăliga din Orientul Mijlociu" ("Middle East Polenta") that is the title chosen by Shachar Shaine, the former head of Tuborg Romania, for his speech delivered at the luxury Loft restaurant in Bucharest, held by a businessman closely connected to the beverage industry, Pepe Berciu, on Wednesday night. Shaine, 42, said goodbye to his co-workers, as well as to competitors in a relaxed atmosphere, pointing out that Romania was definitely "the country worth living and investing in". The manager who spent the last six years at the helm of United Romanian Breweries Bereprod (URBB), the bottler of Tuborg and Carlsberg, says he decided to stay in Romania, despite propositions from shareholders for whom he had worked to take over similar businesses in other countries. "I will stay and develop business here," Shaine said without providing further details. He is one of the managers with the longest-standing career in the beer industry, having worked for the same company for the last eleven years. Israeli-born Shaine has repeatedly said he loves Romania and even became a Romanian citizen six months ago.(Z.F.) BCE,ECB,IMF,Germany,France,Euro,currency,forex,investments,bucharest,Romania,cluj,

The story of Mokotów is one of the prominent bright spots in the history of how the commercial property developed in Poland. The former industrial district of Mokotow, Służewiec Przemysłowy has rapidly been transformed into Warsaw’s ultimate office hub, where fully-leased projects from leading developers are regularly snapped up by leading investors. In fact, Colliers International claims that investor demand has intensified so much over the past 12 months that that along with being the hottest office district in Central Europe, Mokotów can actually be considered one of the most liquid markets anywhere in Europe. Is this just marketing overkill from the Polish office of an international agency? After all, with just over 900,000 sqm, Mokotów is hardly among the biggest on the Continent. But according to Neil Gregory-Eaves, Colliers’ international director of CEE investment services, one shouldn’t look at total stock, but instead at how much of it has changed hands in the last 12 months.
“Over the past 12 months, Moktów has had six major office investment transactions which represent approximately 18 percent of the total gross lettable area. The total volume of these transactions is approaching €500m. These kinds of figures mean that Mokotow has easily been the most active office investment sub-district in all of CEE both in terms of the number of transactions and total investment volume,” says Gregory-Eaves.BCE, Citigroup, Comisia Europeana, FMI, Federal Reserve, Germania, Grecia, Irlanda, Marea Britanie, PIB, Rusia, SUA, Spania, Standard and Poor's, Ungaria, Uniunea Europeana,