Irish Politician Slams US Spying on Europeans, Calls Snowden an International Hero

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"If this was Iran or North Korea engaging in this activity (illegal surveillance), there would be an absolute clamor for something to be done."

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Irish Parliament Member: Obama is a 'War Criminal' and the 'Hypocrite of the Century on Peace'

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Fake Store Fronts in Belfast to Make G8 Policies Seem Successful

We Are Change

The Northern Irish government has spent around £2 million on plastering up photos of fake store fronts where businesses once operates. These have been here for over a year but governments in multiple other cities have decided to do the same to put up a false sense of a thriving economy for the G8. This is another example of governments attempting to mask the problems of recession since the bank bailouts instead of actually doing something about it.


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Hotspots with Max Keiser: Ireland (Video)

YouTube -- ffourfingerzz


Financial war reporter, Max Keiser, travels to the global financial war. This time, Keiser is in Ireland

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BREAKING NEWS: Daniel Estulin ARRESTED at Madrid Airport and prevented from traveling to Ireland

Dave Derby
Infowars Ireland  

Thursday afternoon, around mid-day, Daniel Estulin arrives at Madrid airport in time for his flight to Ireland to accompany Ian R. Crane on his “Beyond Treason”  tour to expose the Irish Bilderbergers and other globalists. On arrival at the airport, Daniel was taken into custody by Spanish police. After a time, he was informed that the “reason” he was detained was because the authorities  believed he may be in possession of a fake passport.

After some questioning and quizzing, which established that his passport was indeed genuine, he was released, but was told he cannot leave the country and certainly cannot travel to Ireland on account of the fact Queen Elizabeth was on her state visit to the country. The authorites, of course, retained Daniel’s passport so as to prevent him leaving the country for that period of time.

It would appear they may have been waiting for him at the airport, and the passport fiasco was simply the pretext to prevent him from travelling to Ireland to help educate the Irish people. And the fact that the Queen was on her state visit offered the perfect excuse to restrict his travel for a number of days.

It is probably no coincidence that this arrest comes in the wake of the huge demonstrations that have been taking place in Spain by its citizens. Thousands of people took to the streets to protest against the political and banking corruption within the country.

http://www.sovereignindependent.com/?p=20299

At this moment in time, this is all the information we have, as it is fresh news. However, we will keep you updated as soon as we have more details of what exactly happened.

In the meantime, the CORK and DUBLIN events will still go ahead with Ian R Crane exposing the Inner Cabal of Irish globalists determined to eradicate the last vestiges of Irish Sovereignty.

REDUCED ENTRANCE: Cork 8 Euro – Dublin 10 Euro
Tickets Available Here


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Wise Irishman Bluntly States the Problem with the Economy (VIDEO)

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Warning to uptight viewers: colorful cursing above


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Iceland offers risky temptation for Ireland as recession ends

Iceland has finally emerged from deep recession after allowing its currency to plunge and washing its hands of private bank debt, prompting an intense debate over whether Ireland might suffer less damage if it adopted the same strategy.

Iceland Winterfest - Alamy image

Ambrose Evans-Pritchard
Telegraph

The Nordic economy grew at 1.2pc in the third quarter and looks poised to rebound next year. It ends a gruelling slump caused largely by the "New Viking" antics of Landsbanki, Glitnir and Kaupthing, the trio of lenders that brought down Iceland's financial system in September 2008.

The economies of the two "over-banked" countries have both contracted by around 11pc of GDP, but Iceland has achieved it with inflation that devalues debt, while Ireland has done it under an EMU deflation regime that raises the burden of debt.


This has led to vastly different debt dynamics as they enter Year III of the drama. Iceland's budget deficit will be 6.3pc this year, and soon in surplus: Ireland's will be 12pc (32pc with bank bail-outs) and not much better next year.

The pain has been distributed very differently. Irish unemployment has reached 14.1pc, and is still rising. Iceland's peaked at 9.7pc and has since fallen to 7.3pc.

The International Monetary Fund said Iceland has turned the corner, praising Reykjavik for safeguarding its "valued Nordic social welfare model".

"In the event, the recession has proved shallower than expected, and Iceland’s growth decline of about minus 7pc in 2009 compares favorably against other countries hard hit by the crisis," said Mark Flanigan, the IMF's mission chief for the country.

Total debt will peak at 115pc, before dropping to 80pc by 2015 in what the IMF called "robust debt dynamics". Meanwhile. Ireland's debt will continue rising for another three years to 120pc of GDP. The contrast will be very stark by the middle of the decade. Iceland may have a lower sovereign debt than Germany by then.

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Irish lawmakers offer initial OK for brutal budget

image/AP

Shawn Pogatchnik
Associated Press

DUBLIN (AP) -- Lawmakers narrowly approved tax hikes as part of Ireland's most brutal budget in history, a euro6 billion ($8 billion) slash-and-tax plan imposed as a key condition of the nation's international bailout.

Rejection following Tuesday's publication of the long-awaited 2011 budget would have forced Prime Minister Brian Cowen's resignation and snap elections -- and raised doubts about whether Ireland could tap euro67.5 billion ($90 billion) from the European Union and the International Monetary Fund.
But Cowen survived thanks to an 82-77 vote in favor of midnight hikes in taxes on vehicle fuel. The complex budget faces several more parliamentary tests between now and February, with at least three separate votes for major bills on welfare cuts, sweeping expansion of the income-tax net and other measures.

Unveiling the budget, Finance Minister Brian Lenihan said every household in this country of 4.5 million must take hits on their net incomes to close Ireland's staggering deficit.


Lenihan said Ireland had no choice but to slash spending and raise taxes immediately because the country this year is spending more than euro50 billion on daily government activities and has committed at least euro45 billion to bail out its banks -- yet is collecting just euro31 billion this year in taxes.

The result has been an underlying deficit this year of 11.6 percent of Ireland's gross domestic product, second-worst in the 16-nation eurozone to fellow aid patient Greece. When exceptional bank-bailout costs are included, as European Union authorities have required, Ireland's 2010 deficit skyrockets to a modern European record of 32 percent of GDP.

Lenihan's plan -- the harshest yet of four emergency budgets unveiled since 2008 -- contains euro4.5 billion ($6 billion) in spending cuts and euro1.5 billion ($2 billion) in tax rises. A potential further euro9 billion ($12 billion) in cuts and tax hikes loom for 2012-14.

He said these measures represent the minimum required to counter "the worst crisis in our history" and put Ireland on course to reduce its deficit to the eurozone limit of 3 percent by 2015 as EU authorities expect.

As Lenihan spoke, outside the wrought-iron parliament gates, several hundred left-wing protesters endured icy weather to denounce the cuts as likely to hit the poorest citizens the hardest. Some banged drums, blew whistles, clanked cattle bells and tooted horns. Many more waved placards demanding that Ireland's state-aided banks default on their hundreds of billions in debts to foreign banks -- a notion that Lenihan dismissed as economically suicidal.

The finance chief stressed that Ireland faced no easy choices as it deepens its austerity measures while simultaneously seeking to grow its economy.

He called the euro80 billion ($105 billion) that Ireland's banks are estimated to have lost on dud property loans "unforgivable" -- yet defended the need for Ireland's taxpayers to foot the lion's share of that bailout bill rather than the foreign banks that loaned Dublin institutions the money.

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Ireland's Debt Servitude

Ambrose Evans-Pritchard
Telegraph

Stripped to its essentials, the €85bn package imposed on Ireland by the Eurogroup and the European Central Bank is a bail-out for improvident British, German, Dutch, and Belgian bankers and creditors.

The Irish taxpayers carry the full burden, and deplete what remains of their reserve pension fund to cover a quarter of the cost.

This arrangement – I am not going to grace it with the term deal – was announced in Brussels before the elected Taoiseach of Ireland had been able to tell his own people what their fate would be.


The Taoiseach said afterwards that Brussels had squelched any idea of haircuts for senior bondholders: a lack of “political and institutional” support in his polite words: or “they hit the roof”, according to leaks.

One can see why the EU authorities reacted so vehemently. Such a move at this delicate juncture would have set off an even more dramatic chain reaction in the EMU debt markets than the one we are already seeing.
It is harder to justify why the Irish should pay the entire price for upholding the European banking system, and why they should accept ruinous terms.

I might add that if it is really true that a haircut on the senior debt of Anglo Irish, et al, would bring down the entire financial edifice of Europe, then how did any of these European banks pass their stress tests this summer, and how did the EU authorities ever let the matter reach this point? Brussels cannot have it both ways.

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Default! Say the Irish People

Irish negotiators raised defaulting but 'Europe went completely mad'

Jody Corcoran
Irish Independent

A SUBSTANTIAL majority of the Irish people wants the State to default on debts to bondholders in the country's stricken banks, according to a Sunday Independent/Quantum Research poll.

The finding that 57 per cent favour and 43 per cent oppose default reflects a growing view among policymakers and opinion formers that the State simply cannot support the debt burden it has taken on.

The telephone poll of 500 people nationwide has also found that a majority of around two-thirds opposes the headline measures in the Government's four-year plan.

Following Fianna Fail's loss of the by-election in Donegal last week, the findings will add to political uncertainty as an austerity Budget approaches on December 7.

As Ireland awaited the fine details of the international bailout, which are expected tonight, it was learned last night that the Irish delegation negotiating with the EU-IMF last week raised the issue of default.

"The Europeans went completely mad," a senior government source said.

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EU approves $113 billion bailout for Ireland

AP – Irish Finance Minister Brian Lenihan
arrives for a round table of eurozone finance
ministers at the EU...

Yahoo News

BRUSSELS – EU nations agreed an euro85 billion ($113 billion) bailout deal for Ireland on Sunday to help the debt-struck country with its banking crisis, and sketched out new rules for future emergencies in an effort to restore faith in the euro currency.

According to a statement by the Irish government, the country will take euro10 billion immediately to boost the capital reserves of its banks. Another euro25 billion earmarked for the banks will remain in reserve.

The Irish government's public finances will receive euro50 billion, to be drawn upon as necessary.

The statement said the International Monetary Fund, the 16 eurozone nations and the European Commission will be involved. Britain, Sweden and Denmark will offer bilateral loans.

"It provides Ireland with vital time and space to successfully and conclusively address the unprecedented problems that we've been dealing with since this global economic crisis began," said Irish Prime Minister Brian Cowen at a press conference in Dublin.

"Most importantly of all, if we didn't have this program, we would have to go back to the markets, which as you know are at prohibitive rates," Cowen said. Yields on Ireland's 10-year bond rose in the past week to euro-era highs.

Of the euro85 billion, Ireland will contribute euro17.5 billion of its own money — transferring cash from its pension reserves, previously prohibited by EU law, to help fill the gap in its government finances.

The statement says the average interest rate Ireland will pay on its loans is 5.8 percent. This total reflects higher rates to be charged by EU sources, and lower rates from IMF and national donors.

Greece is paying 5.2 percent interest on its own bailout from May. Ireland's aid package includes loans that range from 3 to 7 1/2 years, longer than the Greeks' three-year deal.

The European Commission granted Ireland an extra year to bring down its deficit to within the EU limit of 3 percent of GDP. It will now have until 2015, compared with 2014 previously.

EU officials say they have also agreed on a permanent mechanism that would allow a country to restructure its debts after 2013 once it has been deemed insolvent.

Jean-Claude Juncker, the head of the Eurogroup, said private creditors would only be forced to take losses if eurozone ministers agree unanimously that the country has run out of money.

He said that if a country is merely facing a crisis of liquidity it would get financial help similar to the bailout agreed for Ireland.

European Central Bank chief Jean-Claude Trichet said private sector involvement "is fully consistent" with existing policies of the International Monetary Fund.

___

Pogatchnik contributed to this report from Dublin. Associated Press Writer Robert Wielaard in Brussels contributed to this report.

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120,000 protest over Irish economy

YouTube-ScarceNews
Over 100,000 people marched through Dublin on Saturday to protest at government cutbacks in the face of a deepening recession and bailouts for the banks.


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Irish Pension Reserve Funds Openly Targeted by Banksters

Ann Cahill
Irish Examiner

UP to €15 billion from the National Pensions Reserve Fund, set aside when the Celtic Tiger was still roaring, is likely to be used to recapitalise three of the country’s banks.

Amid speculation last night that the rate of interest to be charged on the EU/IMF bailout could be as much as 6.7%, Fine Gael’s finance spokesman Michael Noonan said that kind of rate was "far too high" and unaffordable on any reasonable projection of growth.

The Department of Finance said the interest rate had still not been finalised, but given that much of the loan would be repayable over nine years the rate could be higher than the 5.2% charged to Greece but would not be as high as the 6.7% being quoted by some brokers.


Meanwhile, Anglo Irish Bank, which was downgraded to junk status yesterday evening, is expected to be closed swiftly, together with the Irish Nationwide Building Society, under the EU/IMF loan plan.

Officials hope to finalise the details of the €85bn package later today and have EU finance ministers approve it tomorrow.

The emphasis in the plan is to avoid drawing down money from the bailout and rely in the first place on money from the Pension Reserve Fund for the banks, and on the €20bn the state borrowed earlier this year to part-fund next year’s national budget.

Economist at the Economic and Social Research Institute, John FitzGerald, said he believed it would be a good idea to use the money in the pensions fund to recapitalise the banks, and keep the EU/IMF funds in reserve in case they needed further money later.

"Using the €20bn in cash we have first would be good for the country in the short run. It would leave the opening debt for 2012 €20bn lower and interest payments would be €1bn less. It would also leave the national debt lower than forecast at the end of next year," he said.

About €35bn of the total EU/IMF loan was being earmarked last night for the banks.

The Government would prefer not to tap this sum but keep it in reserve for contingencies during the three-year programme.

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Iceland Better Off Than Ireland Because They Let Big Private Banks Fail, says President

Iceland Recovering

Jonas Bergman and Omar R. Valdimarsson
Bloomberg

Iceland’s President Olafur R. Grimsson said his country is better off than Ireland thanks to the government’s decision to allow the banks to fail two years ago and because the krona could be devalued.

“The difference is that in Iceland we allowed the banks to fail,” Grimsson said in an interview with Bloomberg Television’s Mark Barton today. “These were private banks and we didn’t pump money into them in order to keep them going; the state did not shoulder the responsibility of the failed private banks.”


Ireland’s Prime Minister Brian Cowen said this week his government has discussed an 85 billion-euro ($112 billion) bailout with the European Union and International Monetary Fund after the country’s banks threatened to bring the euro member to the brink of bankruptcy. Iceland’s banks, which still owe creditors about $85 billion, were split to create domestic units needed to keep the financial system running, while foreign liabilities remained within the failed lenders.

As a consequence, “Iceland is faring much better than anybody expected,” Grimsson said. The Icelandic state’s liability on foreign depositor claims stemming from Icesave accounts at failed Landsbanki Islands hf should be put to a national referendum, he said.

“How far can we ask ordinary people -- farmers and fishermen and teachers and doctors and nurses -- to shoulder the responsibility of failed private banks,” said Grimsson. “That question, which has been at the core of the Icesave issue, will now be the burning issue in many European countries.”

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Debt turmoil, contagion fears sweep Europe

Illustration: Market Oracle

Barry Hatton
Associated Press

LISBON, Portugal – Europe struggled mightily Friday to keep the debt crisis from engulfing country after country. Portugal passed austerity measures to fend off the speculative trades pushing it toward a bailout and Ireland rushed to negotiate its own imminent rescue.

As Portugal and Spain insisted they will not seek outside help, creating an eery sense of deja-vu for investors, Europe braced for what seems inevitable — more expensive bailouts.

The Portuguese Parliament approved an unpopular debt-reducing package, including tax hikes and cuts in pay and welfare benefits. But while that helped to avoid a sharper deterioration in bond markets, the sense among analysts was that the move had only bought a little time.


Adding to the pressure, Ireland's major banks were hit with credit downgrades — one to junk bond status — as speculation mounted that the EU-IMF bailout of Ireland, to be revealed within days, would require investors to take losses, a possibility earlier denied by officials.

"This confusing `pea-soup' of indecision, vacillation and disunity by the EU is beginning to create unnecessarily seismic waves of fear in international bond and money markets," said David Buik, markets analyst at BGC Partners.

Yields in fiscally weak eurozone countries remained near record highs Friday, stocks slumped across the board and the 16-nation euro lost another 0.8 percent on the day to trade at $1.3241, just off two-month lows.

Portugal's high debt and low growth have alarmed investors, but the government insists it doesn't require an international rescue — a line ominously reminiscent of claims by Greece and Ireland before their massive rescues.

Analysts say markets need more reassurance from EU leaders that the rot can be stopped in Portugal before spreading to Spain, the continent's fourth-largest economy — a scenario that would threaten the 16-nation euro currency itself.

The financial crisis took a step in that direction this week, as it increasingly becomes apparent that bond investors will not be pacified by austerity measures but want weak countries' public finances to be plugged once and for all. Greece, which accepted a bailout six months ago, and Ireland are still far from being able to return to international debt markets.

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