British embassies in the eurozone have been told to draw up plans to help British expats through the collapse of the single currency, amid new fears for Italy and Spain.
As the Italian government struggled to borrow and Spain considered seeking an international bail-out, British ministers privately warned that the break-up of the euro, once almost unthinkable, is now increasingly plausible. Diplomats are preparing to help Britons abroad through a banking collapse and even riots arising from the debt crisis. Oh c'mon now: surely socialists don't riot just because things don't go their way...
The Treasury confirmed earlier this month that contingency planning for a collapse is now under way. A senior minister has now revealed the extent of the Government's concern, saying that Britain is now planning on the basis that a euro collapse is now just a matter of time.
"It's in our interests that they keep playing for time because that gives us more time to prepare," the minister told the Daily Telegraph.
Continued on Page 47
#2
I think a capsule summary of the European defensive policy is to hold committee hearings until the situation has become critical, then use nuclear weapons.
#3
What makes this extra troubling is that a group of major banks are now forming contingency plans openly, explaining that "the collapse of the Euro has moved from a possibility to a probability."
If it was just the FO or the banks, it wouldn't matter so much, but both of them, and right when Portugal, Hungary and Belgium have been downgraded should totally unnerve the markets.
And then Germany had a bond issue failure, with 1/3rd left unsold. They are the most secure bond on the continent.
Doctors were left astounded after a gigantic baby set a new record for Germanys heaviest-ever naturally born newborn Friday. The boy was named Jihad.
The 6-kilogramme (13-pound) boy was born at Berlins Charité hospital to a 40-year-old, 240-kilogramme (528-pound) woman who also had gestational diabetes and most likely a metabolic disorder, according to doctors.
Women suffering from untreated gestational diabetes when a pregnant woman who doesnt previously suffer from diabetes has excessively high blood sugar tend to produce particularly overweight babies.
Such newborns are often delivered via caesarean section because they can suffer from oxygen deficiency or shoulder dislocations during birth.
But in this case the mother opted for a vaginal birth, which lasted seven hours and luckily went off without a hitch.
She insisted on a vaginal birth despite the very high risk, said Wolfgang Henrich, the chief doctor at Charités obstetrics clinic. We usually advise mothers carrying a child with an estimated weight of more than 4.5 kilos to opt for a caesarean section to avoid complications.
The boy will join nine brothers and four sisters four of which had birth weights of more than five kilograms.
The woman claimed she didnt know of her diabetes, but doctors believe she was aware and ate too much sweet food.
Continued on Page 47
h/t Instapundit
Belgiums credit rating was cut one step to AA by Standard & Poors, which said bank guarantees, lack of policy consensus and slowing growth will make it difficult to reduce the euro regions fifth-highest debt load. Somebody been talking about North vs. South? Continued on Page 47
#3
Belgian parties reach 2012 budget deal BELGIAN politicians reached a deal on the 2012 budget today, ending a 19-month deadlock that had prevented the formation of a stable government and led to a debt downgrade, a negotiator said.
"There is an agreement," said a spokesman for the French-speaking socialists, one of six parties in the linguistically-divided country that had been struggling to reconcile spending cuts with tax rises.
The accord, reached after 17 hours of negotiations, opens the way to forming a new government after 19 months in caretaker management.
Friday night's downgrade by ratings giant Standard and Poor's, which saw Belgium drop by one notch to AA, piled pressure on the parties to reconcile spending cuts with tax rises to avoid EU penalties next month.
Racism and demands for special treatment greet staff at Odense University Hospital
These are some of the wounded 15th November arrived in Denmark, which now make trouble at the hospital in Odense.
- How would a wounded Dane man feel about 'country' on a stranger hospital? I understand that these problems arise, says senior consultant Niels Dieter Rock from Odense University Hospital.
Oxygen cylinders and a lit cigarette is not the world's best presentation. But smoking is just one of the requirements that a group of wounded Libyans places during their stay at Odense University Hospital.
Since the wounded were flown to Denmark 15 November, the hospital's doctors and nurses also had to contend with racist remarks and demands for special treatment of the injured. According Ekatrabladet information will men for example have a female interpreter.
The problems were so severe that hospital management has asked the Libyan authorities to send people to the hospital to solve problems -- and it has helped.
- We have said that we would have someone to come and talk properly with them and explain how the terms are in Denmark, explains chief executive Niels Dieter Rock Extra Bladet.
He stresses, however, that he understands that the problems arose.
- When you are brought from a war zone and nestled in one of the defense aircraft and ends at a Danish hospital, where we have a completely different culture, so it may not surprise some that we have some problems.
#2
You have to wonder how much of this is arrogant Libyan, and how much is a reasonable rejection of Danish P.C. in their face.
P.C. people are always amazed and appalled when outsiders neither respect nor appreciate their contrived local rules. This has given me great glee in past.
#3
people are always amazed and appalled when outsiders neither respect nor appreciate their contrived local rules Now & then native Americans of different tribal backgrounds will start to argue among themselves about their taboos & customs. Hilarity does not ensue.
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
