 | | Doha ´city centre´ part of history |
 THE high sales pitch of the
shop-owners and the flurry of
activity among shoppers, trying
to drive a smart bargain at
Musheireb (popularly called
National), Souq Ahmed bin
Abdullah and the markets in the
lanes and bylanes
of the area
seen over the last
one week or so are
like the flicker of a lamp´s flame
before it dies out in a storm.
The traders are resorting to
distress clearance of their
stocks as the deadline. |
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|  |  | | Europe´s Real Problems |
| WHEN the history of the 21st
century is written people
will ask why it was that
Europe was found wanting
during its most intractable
economic crisis. They will ask why
Europe slept as an undercapitalised
banking system floundered, unemployment
remained unacceptably high, and
the Continent´s growth and competitiveness
plummeted.
Worse still, if a reconstruction plan
does not come soon, Europe´s leaders
will be charged with "the decline of... |
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| |  | | NO, WE CAN´T?
OR WON´T? |
| IF you were shocked by Friday´s
job report, if you thought we
were doing well and were taken
aback by the bad news, you
haven´t been paying attention.
The fact is, the United States economy
has been stuck in a rut for a year
and a half.
Yet a destructive passivity has
overtaken our discourse. Turn on
your TV and you´ll see some self-satisfied
pundit declaring that nothing
much can be done about the economy´s
short... |
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Italy slams attack on its economy
AFP
MILAN ITALY’s Foreign Minister Franco Frattini lashed out in an interview on Tuesday at what he said was a “purely speculative” financial attack on Italy, struggling to shake off eurozone debt contagion.
Frattini insisted the Italian economy was basically in good shape despite pressure from investors.
“It’s a purely speculative attack because our banks are doing better than those of other countries, we haven’t had a Spanish property bubble or an Irish financial bubble and we don’t have Greece’s public finances,” Frattini told La Repubblica daily.
Frattini said the government’s austerity budget should be adopted by parliament before July 31, and called on opposition parties not to impede its smooth passage with a deluge of amendments, which would be a “devastating signal to the markets”.
The Italian government earlier this month announced a four-year austerity budget worth 40 billion euros ($56.5 billion) in a bid to reduce the budget deficit to just 0.2 percent of output by 2014 from 4.6 percent last year.
Italy has become the new pressure point in the eurozone debt crisis and the Milan stock exchange shed more than 4% shortly after opening Tuesday.
The benchmark FTSE Mib index dropped to 17,544 points within minutes of opening, after it fell nearly 4% the day before.
Bank shares were in freefall, with UniCredito shedding 7.11% to 1.072 euro and Intesa Sanpaolo dropping 6.62% to 1.425 euro.
Growing fears of a Greek default has provoked a sharp rise in Italian as well as Spanish rates on the bond markets.
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